Introduction
Aught (pronounced like thought, without the TH.) is a card-shedding game where the objective is to be the first to play every card in your hand through a combination of thinking ahead and ruthlessly undermining your fellow players.
House Rules
Most K.R. Engineering games have a variety of options or “house rules” that can be turned on and off by the game owner to change how the game plays. These options can include changing the winning criteria for a game, adding new rules or disabling other rules, or just placing time limits on how long you can be away before the game skips you. It is often helpful to know what house rules you are playing with when you sit down at a game. You can touch the game logo on any K.R. Engineering game to see a list of which options are enabled and which are not.
For owners/administrators wishing to change these options, please see the Administration section of this article.
Getting Started
If you are new to owning a K.R. Engineering game or have upgraded from an older game version, then you may have questions about your new table. Please see this FAQ for answers to some of our most common beginner questions.
Bug Fixes and Upgrades
Most owners of K.R. Engineering games are entitled to free upgrades to newer versions of the game. If a new update is available, then following the updating instructions for your game will result in a new copy of the most recent version being sent to you by the update server. This process is not automatic. You must request an update manually.
If you are having problems with your game, please search this knowledge base or contact us for product support. If the problem you are having has not previously been encountered, a new game version will be released with a fix as soon as possible, and you may qualify for a bug bounty.
DISCLAIMER: The appearance and feature set of games are subject to revision between versions as the capabilities of Second Life change over time. Please see the detailed ChangeLog for your particular game before upgrading. By upgrading. you are agreeing to accept any and all changes that have been imposed on the updated version of the game.
Joining the Game
Most K.R. Engineering games can be played simply by right-clicking on a chair and choosing “Play.”
K.R. Engineering games can be played on a variety of themed furniture objects, and the “chairs” may not always look like chairs. For example, on the Chess theme, the “chairs” are the giant chess pieces. If you are unsure what is a chair and what isn’t on a particular theme, that’s okay! You can right-click and select “Play” on any part of a theme and it will automatically place you in an available chair, even if you didn’t click on a chair specifically.
Important: K.R. Engineering games use a rezzing system. This means that the game (buttons, dice, cards, game boards, etc) is a separate object from the furniture/rezzer/theme. You must right-click on the theme to play, not the game itself, as you cannot sit on the game pieces (such as dice, game boards, cards, etc). You must sit on the furniture around the game to play, not the game pieces.
While most game themes include furniture that you can sit on, there may be some exceptions. The Pocket theme, for example, cannot be sat on, as it has no chairs. Instead, you can join a game on a Pocket theme by clicking the MENU button on the game.
Game Play
All players who wish to play must be seated before the Start button is pressed. Once the game has begun, additional players may not join in. However, if a player vacates his seat, another player may take over the vacated position.
All players must be wearing an Aught Card HUD to play the game. Press the HUD button on the game to receive a free copy of the HUD if you do not have one. Find this HUD in your Objects folder and attach it. If you do not attach your HUD before the game starts, that is okay. You can attach it after the game has started.
Press Start to begin the game. All players will be dealt 7 cards.
On your turn, click on a card in your HUD to play and follow the HUD’s instructions. If you choose a card that is unplayable, the game will ask you to play again.
If you select a wild card (all Black cards), the HUD will not let you play it until you choose which color you are playing the wild card as (purple, orange, green or cyan).
If you are unable to play any of the cards in your hand, you must draw a card by touching the draw deck in the center of the game board. If you are able to play the card you just drew, you may do so immediately. If you are still unable to play any of the cards in your hand after drawing, you lose your turn and play passes to the next person. (Note: You may draw a card on any turn, even if you have other cards you could play. The only time you MUST draw a card is if you have no playable cards.)
The round is over when a player successfully plays all of the cards in their hand. The other players are then scored based on the cards left in their hand.
The game is over when a player exceeds 500 points (or 300 points with Fast Game enabled). The player with the LOWEST overall score from the entire game is the winner of the game.
Card Playing Rules
- The card you play must either be the same color as the top card in the discard pile, or have the same number/symbol on it as the top card in the discard pile.
- Wild Cards (all Black cards) do not have a “symbol” and therefore you can only play on their color (chosen when they are played on the discard pile).
Card Playing Effects
- Cards numbered 0 through 9 have no special effect, they are simply played.
- Cards featuring a +2 symbol are DRAW TWO cards, and force the next person to play after you to draw 2 cards from the draw deck.
- Cards featuring opposing arrows are REVERSE cards, and forces the direction of gameplay to reverse (from counter-clockwise to clockwise, or vice-versa).
- Cards featuring a NO symbol (circle with a strike through it) are SKIP cards, and will cause the next player to play after you to lose their turn.
- Cards featuring the Aught logo with a +4 over it are DRAW FOUR cards, and force the next person to play after you to draw 4 cards from the draw deck in addition to being a wild card.
- Cards featuring the Aught logo with no other symbols over it are wild cards, and have no effect other than changing the color of the deck.
Card Scoring
- Cards with a numerical value on them (0 through 9) are worth the value printed on them in points.
- Skip, Reverse and Draw Two cards (colored cards with symbols instead of numbers) are worth 20 points each.
- All Wild Cards (black cards) are worth 50 points each!
Strategy
By being the first player to run out of cards, you will get zero points for that round, which is good! The lowest score wins the game.
Even if you can’t be the first person to play all of your cards, you should play high point cards when possible so that if the round ends by another player running out of cards, the cards you are left holding will be worth as little as possible.
The cards that are worth the most points (and thus the worst to be caught holding) are also the most useful. The Wild Cards (all Black cards) for example are worth a lot, but incredibly useful. Keeping 1 or 2 of these in your hand is a good idea, but you should be watching the other players in the game. In front of each player is an indicator of how many cards they have left (none, 1, 2, 3+). If another player is getting low on cards, you should probably play your high point cards immediately in case they go out.
Protesting
Draw Four cards are only legally allowed to be played if you have no cards matching the current COLOR in your hand. Symbol and number do not matter here. When a Draw Four card is played, a PROTEST button appears on the table top. The victim of a Draw Four (the person who had to draw 4 cards as a result of a Draw Four) can OPTIONALLY choose to press this PROTEST button, or simply continue playing as normal.
If the victim of a Draw Four chooses to protest, one of two things will happen:
- If the player who played the Draw Four played it illegally, they are penalized 4 cards and the victim discards the 4 cards they drew.
- If the player who played the Draw Four did so legally, then the victim who protested is penalized an additional 2 cards (for a total of 6 cards).
Regardless of the outcome of the protest, the Draw Four and the color chosen with it stand and play continues as normal.
Calling
By default, the game will let everyone know automatically when a player is down to 1 card in their hand. However, the game can optionally have a Must Call mode enabled from the Administration menu by the game owner.
When Must Call is enabled, a CALL button appears on the table top. Players who only have 1 card remaining in their hand must press the CALL button before the next player makes their play. If they do not, they will be penalized and forced to draw 2 cards from the draw pile.
Customization
For information on switching out tables and themes, please see this FAQ entry. For an overview of the theme/table administrative menu, please check out our Game Rezzer Administration article. For detailed information on customizing animations and camera views, please see our Player Experience Customization article.
Gaming.SL Live Integration
Gaming.SL Live (also known as Gaming.SL or G.SL) is gaming platform and services system developed by K.R. Engineering, which brings a variety of enhanced features to games in Second Life that are not possible with Second Life alone. In addition to the features described in this article, G.SL can integrate with your table in the following ways.
Leaderboards
Gaming.SL connected games have a grid-wide top score database that allows players to compete and have a pervasive record of their high scores. These high scores can be viewed by using a Top Scores display board in Second Life or by accessing the Top Scores page on the Gaming.SL website. Scores can be filtered down by region, specific game tables, dates, and other criteria.
In addition to recording high scores, games keep a running tally of the total number of times players have won on a game. This information can be viewed on a Top Winners display board in Second Life or by accessing the Top Winners page on the Gaming.SL website. Winners can likewise be filtered by region and other criteria to see a more specific list of winners.
On supported games, players will also be assigned a rank that compares their performance to other players who have played the same game. Players can improve this rank by playing well against other players. Rank information can be viewed on a Top Ranked display board in Second Life or by accessing the Top Ranked page on the Gaming.SL website.
Achievements
Gaming.SL includes support for Achievements in participating games, where-in you can unlock trophies by performing miraculous or mundane feats of gameplay. Achievements are awarded automatically and announced in Second Life when they are unlocked. Players can check their own achievements by visiting the Achievements page on the Gaming.SL website.
Jackpots
Gaming.SL supports the option to have ongoing recurring Jackpots where players can win cash prizes just for playing, no purchase necessary! Visit the Jackpots page on the Gaming.SL website to see the current jackpot standings, and who you need to defeat to win a prize. Prizes are based on ranking on a leaderboard that is erased during each jackpot period. Players must play during each period to be eligible to win during that period.
Licensing
Gaming.SL connected games utilize a licensing system that allows scores, ranks, winners, and other attributes to persist between rezzes of the same game, regardless of location in Second Life. This licensing system also allows games to have COPY permissions while still offering instancing control.
Public Games
Games that use Gaming.SL Live can also optionally be specified as a PUBLIC game by the game’s owner. This will display the game on the Gaming.SL Live Games page, including game status, options, and location, and a button to let a user teleport straight to the game to play. All games default to PRIVATE unless explicitly changed by the owner of the game.
Privacy
See the Gaming.SL Live page for more details on the Gaming.SL Live system, as well as our comprehensive Privacy Policy detailing the information we collect and how we use it.
Administration
To access the game’s administrative menu, simply click and hold your mouse button down on any part of it for two seconds. A menu will pop up on your screen displaying current settings and providing options to change them. (In slow simulators, this may take slighter longer than two seconds, just hold the mouse button down until you see a menu.)
On certain rezzer versions, depending on where you click, you may open the REZZER’S administrative menu instead of the GAME’S administrative menu. This is okay! If you are in the rezzer admin menu, you can switch directly over to the game admin menu by pressing the “Game ↗” button. Likewise if you open the game menu by mistake, and wish to switch over to the rezzer menu, you can simply press the “↙ Rezzer” button.
Some elements of the administration menu are accessible only by the owner, while others can be accessed by anyone who is considered an administrative user, either explicitly added or implicitly through the Group Admin feature.
There are too many options to fit in a standard dialog window, so the window has been divided into pages. You can use the <<< and >>> buttons at the bottom of the admin menu to change which page of options you are currently viewing. If you don’t see the option you want, it’s on another page!
Rezzer Options
Many options that were formerly in the game admin menu have been moved to the table/theme/rezzer admin menu. These are options that are game-independent, such as admin users, branding, sound volume, and updating. These options are now set on the table/theme/rezzer and apply automatically to whatever game is being played on that table or theme. For details on accessing the rezzer admin menu and what options are in it, please see the Game Rezzer Administration article.
Owner-Only Options
- Indicators: A menu for changing the color of the turn indicator lights on the game board.
- Color: An alternate way to access the color/theme menu for the table. This is the same as pressing the Color button on the table top.
Administrative User Options
- ↙ Rezzer: This button will directly open the rezzer’s administrative menu instead of the game’s menu.
- Players: Access the player management menu to skip or evict players from the game.
- Abandoned: Select this button to change the number of seconds the table waits to reset an abandoned game after all players have left.
- Timeout: Select this button to change the number of seconds the table waits for idle players to begin their turn. If they don’t roll before the timeout occurs, the game will skip them for this round.
- Quiet: Enable quiet mode, reducing the amount of chatter that the game will send to local chat.
- Chatty: Disable quiet mode.
- Normal: Games are played to 500 points.
- Fast: Games are played to 300 points.
- Faster: Games are played to 100 points.
- Fastest: Games are played to 50 points.
- Text On: Enable hover text for player scores.
- Text Off: Disable hover text for player scores.
- Call On: Enable Must Call mode, requiring players to press a button when they have 1 card left.
- Call Off: Disable Must Call mode.
- Passing On: Allow players to simply pass their turn without taking any action.
- Passing Off: Players must play a card on their turn if they are able.
Additional Questions
If you have more questions, please use the search tool on our main page to browse our many helpful articles and FAQ entries. If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, you can contact us for assistance.
ChangeLog
You can find the ChangeLog for Aught by visiting this article.