Release 1.7 - Some Love For Single Player Cribbage

After quite a few releases that had a heavy focus on the multiplayer side of the game in Cribbage Pro, although we always give some single player improvements too, we are really excited to finally release version 1.7 which is almost entirely focused on just the single player side of the game (coming first on Android; iOS users it is coming soon hopefully with your iPad support too).

So without further delay, here is a run down of these new features in our now traditional bullet list style.

• New Single Player Achievements System
• You can now earn over 80 different achievements while playing Cribbage Pro on single player, and each achievement you earn gives you more points towards appearing in the "Top 50" leader boards.  That's right, you can even lose a game but have an achievement earned which off-sets that loss and still move up.  We think it's more fair then just earning for a win.  You showed skill in earning the achievement (say a nice 24 point hand) and that skill should be represented in the rankings.
• Not all achievements are for showing your greatness, some of them just mark a milestone in your game play.  For instance, you get one for playing 100 games, then 1000 and then 2000+ at each level of difficulty.  You may also get a "19 Point Crib" achievement if you find yourself unlucky enough to have 0 points in your own crib. This is of course not a good thing, but just a common slang used in cribbage in general that we thought would be fun to add in to soften that harsh blow.
• Right now there are over 80, and we have ideas for even more, but would like your suggestions as well.  So email us what you think might make a good achievement in the game and we will see what we can do to add it in for a future release.
• Real World Rewards from Kiip
• OK, so achievements are great and all, but what if they were not just points you could earn to get to the leader board but included other real-world rewards for significant game achievements.  Once we heard of Kiip and how it worked out with the timing of our achievements release here, we got really excited as we think you all will too.  If you have been lucky enough to earn one already or gift it to a friend, you know what we are talking about. For those of you who have no idea what Kiip is and why we are excited to bring it to you, check out their video on earning real rewards in games you are already playing.
• "Top 50" with new "Recently Played" and "All Time"
• We heard you all on this one a few times, and we are glad to be able to finally start to do something about the Top 50 leader-board for single player.  One of the big glaring issues was that someone who played the game over a year ago and did really well may be sitting on that list, but only now playing the game just intermittently enough to keep their spot.  This first set of changes in this release are starting to address this.  With the new "Recently Played" list being the default, players who have not played the game in a while will drop off the list and the list can change each and every day that ticks past giving the newer players who just found us a chance to make the list too.  Of course, there is still the "All Time" list to try and get to as well.  Note that we changed this for single player and multiplayer Top 50.
• Some Graphical Tweaks
• We made the "Count" box bigger, bolder, styled it and generally made it easier to read and we also made a few other tweaks to the overall layout which I'm betting nobody notices very much, but they were bothering us so we fixed them.
• Improvements to Using Random.org
• On Android we have been using Random.org for our random seed data in shuffling/etc. in the game for a while, but it was not as efficient as it should be and it would run out too fast at times and not be able to get new good random data (not a good enough internet connection, etc.) and be forced to fall back to using the devices random source (which we have to say almost universally terrible).  So in this release we added a few new technical adjustments to that system and how we utilize it to make the cards you get (and the cards the computer is dealt) as random as we possibly can as often as we possibly can.

We have already had a few requests for a list of all the possible achievements you can earn in the game, and when.  Right now we will not be releasing the full list (remember, that's 80+ so it would be a long list), but in a future blog post we will list out some of our favorites and/or ones that we are getting questions.  So more to come there.

As always, if you have suggestions, comments or feedback of any kind please let us know in the comments here on the blog or (particularly if you want a quick response) by emailing support@fullersystems.com

Cribbage Pro 1.6 Released!

We are excited to announce the release of Cribbage Pro version 1.6 to both Android and iOS users.  This new version adds the much requested tablet support for Android users (iOS users know that iPad support is coming) along with a host of other new features and some bug fixes too.

So, whats new in 1.6.0:

• As mentioned above, Android now has initial tablet support for larger tablets (10" screens)
• If you are running a smaller tablet (say the 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab), you will not see many changes, but if you are using one of the new Motorola Xooms or any other larger tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, you will see a new layout with larger board, cards, etc.
• If you are using a larger tablet device, and are not seeing the new layout, please let us know as there are literally hundreds of them out there and we just can't test on them all.
• Player reviews & ratings in multiplayer 
• Players quit, players have lousy connections and disconnect all the time, players can be rude and any number of other things that make it hard to play someone.  On the positive side, players can be great opponents, offer a great challenge and be really nice to play.  The negative things do not make the game fun, and the community should know who those players are before they play them, and people who play nice and are fun to play against should also be recognized. This is why we have added this new review/rating system to the multiplayer game.  When you are done playing a game, you are asked if you want to just exit or if you want to also rate the player you just finished playing.  We don't let you just type in whatever you want for the review side, but you can select a 5 star rating for them and choose from a list of "reasons" why.  If you don't like the reasons, choose "other" and email us and we will see about adding your suggestion.
• Support for multiple devices with the same user name/account 
• So you have an iPod, an iPhone and and iPad and want to use the same user name on all the devices?  Yeah, now you can do that.  Same goes for Android if you have a phone, a media player and a tablet (or you are like us and have lots of phones), you can use the same account on all of them and the system will keep the stats updated in aggregate.  Of course, you can't login with the same user name on all of the devices at the same time for multiplayer, so if you do it will kick out whoever is logged in on your other device. Simply put, we can't have two users with the same exact name on the server at the same exact time - it just would not make any sense.  If you already have other accounts setup, just uninstall the game and then re-install it from scratch again and select that you "Already Registered" when prompted and be sure to use the same user name to login as your other devices.  We will continue to improve this experience over time as well to make it even easier to switch accounts around as needed as people start having more devices that they may share with someone else.
• You can now permanently delete a "Friend" 
• Honestly, this feature was there when the "Friend" system was first added, but we hid it because we really did not see a deep need for it and thought it would cause more confusion then help.  However, you all spoke up and asked for it and gave some really good reasons why too.  So, we were wrong, and now here it is.  You can now delete a friend completely from your list.
• Ability to disable in-game chat per game 
• Another one of those "odd" features perhaps, but since we have had a lot of requests for it and a lot of really good justifications for it (perhaps you want to let your younger kids play online but don't want to worry about them being bothered), we hope you will find it useful.  If your one of those players that always want to chat, don't join the game that has the little crossed out chat balloon and if you see it, know that you won't be able to chat with that user while playing the game.
• New actions list for joining games and viewing you and your friends stats and ratings in multiplayer 
• We have had stats for a really long time, but it was not always easy to view each others stats and now that we have added "ratings", this became more of an issue for us.  With this release we have added the ability to view the stats of someone hosting a game and view their ratings before you decide if you want to play them.  If you are the host, and someone joins your game, click the stars you see under their avatar and you will be able to view their ratings before you start the game as well.  You can also view your own statistics and ratings right from within the multiplayer lobby with the new section added at the bottom of the screen so now you can see quickly what your current points, level and rating are in the game without leaving multiplayer.

We hope you all enjoy this release as much as we have enjoyed creating it for you, and as always if you have any suggestions or want to share any of your thoughts on this release or anything else, please email us at support@FullerSystems.com or you can just leave us a comment below too.