This game was a ton of fun to finish! The one thing I learned by trying to get it done in a week was that I shouldn't have bothered with full-on poker to get the distinguishing features of the game across.

The thing this game is supposed to be is Super Punch-out!! but for poker. I didn't get a chance to add more than one opponent though, on account of adding full poker logic and a cheap version of a betting system. If I were to do it again, I'd start with something simpler, like war, for the underlying card game. All the betting, bluffing and character personalities could have still come through--and maybe more so for having less of a card game to worry about as you play!

All that said, the parts I had the most fun developing for this were chip-flicking and tongue-slinging/fly-catching. That's the sort of stuff I should have spent more time on, as it's what makes the game not-just-poker. I wanted to implement that the opponent not only has tells for bluffs and strong hands, but also that they might try to cheat. You could catch them red-handed if you could snap your tongue out in time!

Other than that, one weird hurdle for development was that GameMaker wouldn't recognize the Pixel Western font for some reason. This led to creating lots of sprites where I could have just written text. The added tedium definitely took up time. Even so, I had a lot of fun doing the art for this one, especially the card backs and the portraits!

I hope you'll have some fun playing it--if you come up with ideas for other opponents, let me know!