Magic: The Gathering

I never really got into Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering card game. I think I bought a sum total of one booster pack. But GameDev.net recently had a thread pop up on the forums about a blog called "Computer Programming and Magic: The Gathering".

It's a good read, especially if you're interested in the AI (which, by the way, has beaten me more times than I care to say -- but I'm putting that down to inexperience with M:TG). I've yet to go through the source code (it's done in Java): that'll probably have to wait until after my last exam of the semester (on 21 June), which is coincidentally on AI.

I may never become a great Magic player, but it's inspired me to restart a project I'd briefly looked at over the (southern hemisphere) summer, making a single-player (that is, player vs. computer) version of the old Decipher game, Star Wars Customizable Card Game. That's the only CCG I really got into (although I dabbled briefly with Middle-Earth: The Wizards, Bablyon 5, Aliens vs. Predator, and Lord of the Rings), but finding anyone to play against is next to impossible. Ages ago, I found a mirror of the old Decipher website that had the images of all the cards, so I have all the card images, and getting the basic game up and running shouldn't be too much of an issue (that is, basic mechanics with none of the cards' special rules implemented).

I'll keep you posted.