Edgy-Penguins - "Linux for Non-Geeks" - Apps & Projects - XSkat
XSkat
Introduction: Skat is a German 3-player card game known by gaming enthiusiasts throughout the world. The game is played with 32 cards (Ace through 7 for each suit) and is traditionally played with German suited decks (see example below), though the more familar French suited decks (hearts, diamonds, spades & clubs) are used by some players instead.

German Suited Playing Cards



Bavarian pattern (Bayerisches Bild)
 German cards are used in various regions of Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and even certain parts of Italy and Poland. The most unusual aspect of German cards is the suits themselves. These consist of acorns (Eichel), hearts (Herz or Rot), Bells (Schellen), and Leaves (Laub or Grün). Another noticeable difference is the patterns on the cards, which vary by region.

In addition to these graphical differences, German decks differ and vary in regard to the number of cards within a deck. This reflects the needs of the games played, Decks for the Austrian game Schnapsen consist of 24 cards, 32 cards for Skat and Schafkopf, and 33 cards for the Tyrolean version of Watten. There is also a 36-card deck for Bavarian Tarock games.

There are also differences in the face cards and the ace. Rather than a 1, the ace is actually a 2, and is thus referred to as the Deuce (Daus). While the King (Kõnig) is the same as in French/English decks, the equivalents to the queen and jack are not. German decks instead have two knights or knaves, whose ranks are indicated by the position of the suit indicator on the card: at the top of the card for the upper knight (Oberman), and at the bottom for the lower knight (Underman),

Installing XSkat: XSkat is computer based version of Skat that can be played in English or German and with either German or French suited cards. You will need to compile and install this game via the command Terminal, but fortunately, if you've gone through Chapters 9 and 11 in my book, this is a very simple project to deal with.

The Steps:
  • Download the XSkat tarball from the XSkat project hompage, or just right-click the link here first and select "Save Link Target As..." to download it straight away.
  • Once the download is complete, double-click the xskat tarball (xskat-3.4.tar.gz as of this writing) to bring up the File Roller program. Once the program is open, follow the extraction process you learned in Chapter 11.
  • Once the tarball is extracted, you will have a new folder matching the name of the tarball minus the "tar.gz" (xkat-3.4 in this case).
  • Now open a Terminal window and cd to the new folder. If the folder is in your Home folder, just type cd xskat-3.4 and then hit ENTER.
  • Now in the same Terminal window, type ./configure and then hit ENTER.
  • Once the configure process is complete, type (in the Terminal, of course) make and hit ENTER.
  • Once make has done its thing, and you are back at your prompt, become root by typing su and hitting ENTER, and then typing in your root password and hitting ENTER.
  • Now that you are root, your prompt should be displaying a # rather than a $. If so, type in make install install man and hit ENTER. This will install the game and the man (manual) pages for the game.
  • Exit root mode by typing exit and hitting Enter.
  • Type exit and hit ENTER again to close the Terminal (or just click the X in the upper right hand corner of the Terminal window).
Running XSkat: Now that the installation is complete, you can run XSkat by going to the Main menu and selecting Run Application. In the Run Application window, type xskat and then click the Run button. Once you've done this, XSkat will appear, looking something like the image below:


Other Stuff: To get to the preferences window (where you can select options such as French or German cards, German or English language interface, and hints), right-click anywhere in the XSkat window and then click the Options button in the small window that appears. To read the man pages for the game, open a Terminal window, type man xskat and hit ENTER. To find out the rules of Skat, check out the Pagat (a great source of gaming rules) page for Skat by clicking here.

Oh, and just in case you've gotten interested in such things, the pattern used in the German deck in XSkat is the Deutsches Bild (German pattern), which is common to the former East Germany. You can find out more about German cards (as well as Italian and Spanish cards) at Andy's Playing Cards site.

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