Introduction
Shalosh is a card-shedding game for to 2 to 8 players. Playing style is reminiscent of UNO, but played with one or more traditional decks of cards. There are no Jokers in Shalosh, so each deck is 52 cards.
Also Known As
Some people may also know Shalosh by the rather unglamorous name of Shithead.
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
Important: To play Shalosh, you must be wearing the Shalosh HUD. To get a HUD, press the ‘HUD’ button on the table. You will be given an object called Shalosh Game HUD. Find this under your Objects folder and wear it.
Shalosh is the Hebrew word for ‘three.’ While playing, each player has three face down cards in front of them, three face up cards in front of them, and three cards in their hand (ideally). To begin playing, players must sit at the table and press the Start button once all players are seated. Once the game has been started, no new players may join the game.
The player who starts the game is given the opportunity to select the number of card decks that will be used for the duration of the game. The more card decks that are used (up to a maximum of 4 decks, 208 cards), the longer the game will take to finish. If there are 2 to 4 players, then a minimum of 1 deck must be used. If there are 5 to 8 players, then a minimum of 2 decks must be used.
Once the number of decks have been chosen, the game begins. The game will automatically shuffle and deal cards to each player. Each player will receive 3 face down cards on the table in front of them, followed by 6 cards in their ‘hand.’ Once all of the cards have been dealt, players must then choose three of the six cards in their hands to lay down on the table in front of them, face up. The cards you choose to lay face up can drastically effect your ability to play in the final stages of the game (see below).
Once all players have laid down their three face up cards, then play begins. The player whose turn it is must choose 1 or more cards to lay down on the discard pile. The rules for discarding are:
- Trump cards may be played on top of any other card, except an identical trump (i.e. you can’t play a 3 on top of a 3). The trump cards are:
- Twos: A 2 may be placed down to ‘reset’ the discard pile back to 2, the lowest value card.
- Threes: A 3 may be played as a trump card, but it has no effect. It is transparent. This means that the next player whose turn it is must play according to the card below the 3, not on the 3 itself.
- Sevens: A 7 may be played to invert the discard order. (See additional rules below.)
- Tens: A 10 may be played to ‘close’ the discard pile. When a 10 is played, all cards on the discard pile are removed from the game and the player who played the 10 must follow it by laying down a new card to begin the discard pile anew. Since the entire discard pile is removed at this point, players may follow up a 10 with another 10, because the second ten will be played on an empty pile, not on top of the first 10.
- The standard rule of play is that you must play a card that is HIGHER than the top-most card on the discard pile.
- Exception: If the top card is a 3, you must play according to the card underneath it.
- Exception: If the top card (or the card under a 3) is a 7, you must play a card LOWER than 7 instead of higher.
- If you have multiples of a given card type (i.e. two Queens, of any suit), then you may play them simultaneously.
- Exception: You may not play multiples of trump cards (2s, 3s, 7s or 10s).
- Aces are high, that means they outrank Kings. They are not ones.
- The suit of the cards is meaningless, there are no restrictions on what suits can be played on top of others.
After every play, players must draw from the card stack until they have AT LEAST 3 cards in their hand. If you have 3 or more cards already, you do not draw any additional cards.
Once the draw pile has been exhausted, players will then naturally run out of cards in their hands. Once a player has discarded all of the cards in their hand, they may start playing cards from the FACE UP cards in front of them. By clicking on a card on the table, it will be moved to your hand where you can play it, if it is playable on the current top-most card. Once a player has used up all of their face up cards, and has no cards in their hand, they may begin to play from their face down cards. These are purposely mysterious, you do not know what any of these cards are until you pick one.
The game is won once a player has completely run out of cards. They must have no cards in their hand and no cards on the table, either face up or face down.
If at any time a player is unable to make a play, they must pick up ALL of the cards in the discard pile by clicking on the discard pile. Since the objective of the game is to run out of cards, this can be very disadvantageous during the late half of the game. It is not necessarily a disadvantage early on in the game, as everyone else must draw from the stack of cards, and you don’t have to until you ‘catch up’ with them by discarding back down to three cards.
Card Matching Rule
The game may optionally have a house rule enabled that allows players to discard an identical card as is on top of the discard pile or greater, rather than just greater. With the option enabled, you can, for example, discard a Queen/King/Ace/Trump on top of another Queen. If the option is disabled, which is the default, you may only discard King/Ace/Trump on top of a Queen.
You may not discard a duplicate trump on top of the same trump card (2, 3, 7 or 10), even with this option enabled (i.e. you can’t play a 7 on another 7.).
See the Administration section for information on enabling/disabling this option.
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.
Shalosh supports Card Design add-ons! Click here for more information.
Custom Cards
K.R. Engineering card games that use a standard playing card deck (and some that use non-standard decks) will allow you to change the cards to be anything that you want if you’re willing to make your own textures for them. You can find more information and instructions by visiting our Custom Cards 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.
- Cards: Access the card customization menu. See the ‘CUSTOM CARDS’ section below for more information.
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.
- Match On: Enable card matching house rule. See the Card Matching Rule section for more info.
- Match Off: Disables card matching house rule.
- Auto On: Enable automatic dealing of face up cards.
- Auto Off: Allow players to choose their own face up cards.
- Burning On: Burn the discard pile if 4-of-a-kind are played. Same as playing a 10 trump.
- Burning Off: Discard pile can only be closed by playing a 10 trump.
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 Shalosh by visiting this article.