# Gnome Hearts User Documentation

## Introduction

Hearts is a trick-taking card game played with four players. The object of the game is to gain as few point cards as possible, with the point cards usually being all the hearts and the Queen of spades. As soon as one player reaches a set number of points the game is over and the player with the lowest score is declared the winner.

## Playing Hearts

The game is played with four players. North, east and west are computer players and you are the south player. A game is made up of several rounds. In each round players gain points by taking point cards. The objective is to gain as few points as possible. The game ends as soon as one player reaches a set amount of points. The player with the lowest amount of points is declared the winner. How many points a card is and when the game ends depends on the ruleset. See the game preferences for more details.

Each player is dealt a hand of cards at the beginning of a round. You have the opportunity to select three cards that you do not want and pass them to another player. In the first round of a game the cards pass left, in the second round they pass across the table, in the third round they pass right and in the fourth round no cards can be passed. Click on the three cards that you want to pass along and then click on the player you want to pass them to.

After the cards have been passed, the round itself begins. Rounds are made up of several tricks. Each player plays one card during a trick. The trick is started by the player who took the previous trick. The other players must play a card of the same suit as the card that started the trick. If you cannot follow the trick then you can play another card. Click on a card in your hand to play it. A card that is valid to play will turn blue when you hover the mouse cursor over it. The player who played the highest card that followed the suit of the first card wins the trick and takes the points in that trick.

The round ends when all the cards have been played. All points that each player gathered are added together. If none of the players has reached the set limit then another round is played.

## Menus

The menu bar at the top of the application contains the following menus:

Game

- - Ctrl N New game - Start a new game of Hearts

  - Restart - Restart the current round

  - Scores - Show the score table

  - Preferences - Open the preferences dialog

  - Ctrl Q Quit - Quit Hearts

View

- - F11 Fullscreen - Toggle fullscreen mode on and off Ctrl T Toolbar - Toggle the toolbar on and off Statusbar - Toggle the statusbar on and off

Control

- - Ctrl Z Undo - Undo your last move

  - Ctrl Shift Z Redo - Redo a previously undone move

  - F1 Hint - Have the computer give you a tip on what you should do

Help

- - Ctrl H Help - Open the help file for Gnome Hearts

  - About - Shows some information about the Gnome Hearts version you are using

## Preferences

The preferences dialog contains three tabs:

### Game

On this tab you can choose what ruleset you want to play with and set some gentlemen's rules. Each of the rulsets is a different variant of hearts.

Standard

- The standard ruleset is what most people will be familiar with. All of the hearts are worth one point and the queen of spades is worth 13 points. The game ends as soon as one player reaches 100 points. You can also "shoot the moon" - that is taking all the hearts and the queen of spades in a single round. Your score will be reduced 26 points instead of increased by 26 points. You can also "shoot the sun" by taking all the tricks in a round. In that case your score is reduced by 52 points.

Omnibus

- The omnibus ruleset is nearly identical to the standard ruleset but with a bonus card. The player who takes the jack of diamonds has his score reduced by 10 points. You do not need to take this card when you "shoot the moon".

Omnibus Alternative

- This ruleset is virtually identical to the Omnibus ruleset but with the ten of diamonds as the bonus card.

Spot Hearts

- All the hearts cards are worth their face value, with 11 points for the jack, 12 points for the queen, 13 points for the king and 14 points for the ace. The queen of spades is worth 25 points and the game ends when the first player reaches 500 points. "Shooting the moon" will reduce your score by 129 points and shooting the sun will reduce it by 258 points.

You can also set some gentleman's rules on top of the ruleset:

Two of clubs leads the round

- When this option is set to yes then the player who has the two of clubs starts the first trick of the round with that card. When set to no then you, the player, always starts the first trick.

Hearts must be "broken" before leading the trick

- Hearts are "broken" when a player cannot follow the suit in a trick and plays a hearts card instead. When this rule is enabled, you cannot start a trick with hearts until hearts are "broken" this way.

Queen of Spades breaks hearts

- This only applies when hearts must be broken before they lead the trick. When this rule is enabled, someone playing the Queen of Spades has also broken hearts, and can lead hearts in the next round.

Point cards may not be played in the first trick

- When this rule is enabled, you cannot play a hearts card or the queen of spades in the first trick of a round. You are still allowed to play bonus cards in the first trick if you are using one of the Omnibus rulesets.

Show player scores next to their name

- When this option is set, the scores for the current round and for the entire game are visible next the the player's names on the playing area.

### Opponents

On this tab you can choose which computer opponents you want to play against. Simply select their names from the dropdown list. Hearts opponents are implemented in Python scripts. You can easily create and modify the players by editing these scripts. For more information about editing players, see the Developer Documentation on the hearts website.

### Style

This tab allows you to customize the look of Hearts. You can choose a background image for the game and pick a deck of cards to play with. If you have the gnome-games application installed, optionally with the gnome-games-extra-data package, then you can choose the card decks provided by them as well.

&GFDL;