The House Always Wins

technical by me, non-technical by https://mattrox09.itch.io/

Sorry everyone, just couldn't get WebGL to work properly. Windows download below.

HOW TO PLAY

The game of pontoon is played by three bots. Each starts with two cards, 2-King, where picture cards count as 10, and they take it in turns to either twist (pick a new card) or stick (not pick a new card). If a deck has a value over 21, it is bust. The round is won by the bot with the highest value deck (shown in white text), without going bust. The game is won by whichever bot has won the most rounds (shown in gold text). The highlighted bot is due their turn next.  allow them to take their turn by pressing the next turn button.

The deck can contain duplicate cards, and does not contain aces.

HOW YOU CAN CHEAT

You need to make sure the middle bot (the one marked "winner") wins the game. You can already see the cards about to be served, in clear violation of the rules. There are two additional ways of cheating that you will need to employ to make this happen.

1. Hints - by pressing the "stick" or "twist" buttons in the upper left corner you can say something with a hidden message. The middle bot will pick up on this, and will follow your command on its turn. This has a middling suspicion cost.

2. Swapping cards - click on one of the cards about to be served (on the bottom of the screen) - and then click on another to swap it. This can change which bot receives which card. This has a high suspicion cost. If you accidentally clicked a card, click the same card again to cancel the swap.

SUSPICION

The suspicion meter shows how close the other bots are to realising you're cheating. It increases by cheating, and decreases a small amount every turn. 

You cannot take an action if it would cause your suspicion to exceed the maximum of the meter.