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All Cards on Deck! (C#)

In this project, you will use C# to model a deck of playing cards. You'll also add functionality such as shuffling and dealing.

Objectives

  • Demonstrate usage of List or arrays to model resources.
  • Understand and implement algorithms.
  • Understand loops.

Requirements

  • Your deck should contain 52 unique cards.
  • All cards should be represented as a string such as "Ace of Hearts"
  • There are four suits: "Clubs", "Diamonds", "Hearts", and "Spades".
  • There are 13 ranks: "Ace", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "10", "Jack", "Queen", and "King".

You will model these in code, in any way you see fit. It may require you to experiment and try several techniques. There are many valid solutions.

NOTE: The more you plan this out (focus on the algorithm) the better you will do.

Shuffling Cards

This assignment will ask you to shuffle the cards

You should implement the Fisher–Yates shuffle algorithm. The shuffling algorithm starts with the last element in our collection (in our case a deck of cards) and swaps it with a randomly selected element that comes before it. This continues downward through the elements towards the first element.

TOP TIP: Watch the first few minutes of this video for a visual description of the algorithm.

If we were going to write an algorithm for this we would write something like:

numberOfCards = length of our deck
for rightIndex from numberOfCards - 1 down to 1 do:
leftIndex = random integer that is greater than or equal to 0 and LESS than rightIndex. See the section "How do we get a random integer")
Now swap the values at rightIndex and leftIndex by doing this:
leftCard = the value from deck[leftIndex]
rightCard = the value from deck[rightIndex]
deck[rightIndex] = leftCard
deck[leftIndex] = rightCard

hint: understand the algorithm before you try to implement it.

How do we get a random integer like the algorithm asks us to?

As we have seen, computers do exactly what we tell them to do. Thus, computers are bad at generating truly random numbers. Randomness is a deep and complex topic, but it's worth pointing out that most random numbers we use in computing are what we call "pseudorandom". That is, they generate numbers that appear to be random such that guessing the next random number the computer's fixed algorithm is going to generate is very difficult. This makes it good enough for most purposes. For this assignment, you will read about, then implement, a popular algorithm that shuffles a list using C#'s built-in Random.Next() function as a pseudorandom number generator.

Hint: Here is an example of code that gives us a random number greater, or equal to 0 and less than 956.

var randomNumberGenerator = new Random();
var randomNumber = randomNumberGenerator.Next(956);

When using this code you could replace the specific value 956 with rightIndex like in the algorithm.

Setup

dotnet new sdg-console -o AllCardsOnDeckCS

Resources

Explorer Mode

  • Once the program starts, you should create a new deck.
  • After deck creation, you should shuffle the deck.
  • After the deck is shuffled, display the top two cards.

Adventure Mode

  • In addition to displaying the top two cards, also store these two "dealt" cards in a variable named playerHand. Consider what type of variable playerHand will have to be.
  • Implement a way to two deal cards each into two different hands.

Epic Mode

  • Implement the game of War
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