Bayou Bourré

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Recreate a browser-based single-player card game titled “Bayou Bourré,” presented as a polished Louisiana card-table interface. Use a dark, atmospheric palette: nearly black green page background, deep forest-green panels and felt, warm cream typography, muted sage secondary text, and antique gold accents. Use Georgia/Times-style serif headings and card faces, with compact Arial-like UI labels. The app should fill the viewport without page scrolling.

Layout and camera/presentation: Make a fixed desktop layout with a top header, a narrow status bar, three columns, and a large central vertical oval-ish rectangular felt table. The header reads “LOUISIANA CARD TABLE” in small spaced gold capitals above the large “Bayou Bourré” title on the left. On the right, show a Players dropdown with options 2, 3, 4, and 5 (default 4), plus a “New deal” button. Directly below, show status metrics for Pot, Ante, Trump, and Trick (initially $0, $5, —, and 0 / 5), with the current phase at the far right (“READY”).

The left sidebar contains a “Table rules” panel listing exactly: ante $5 before every deal; dealer’s last card turns up trump; stay in or fold before the exchange; exchange up to four cards; follow suit when able; zero tricks = Bourré. Under it, place a “Table talk” activity log with a green live indicator, where game events are prepended as text entries. The right sidebar contains a “Your move” panel with contextual instructions and buttons, and a “Players” scoreboard showing each seat’s chip total and trick count. Start with four seats named You, Boudreaux, Cajun Kate, and Big Al; if the dropdown changes, use the first 2–5 names from that list, adding Tante Rose for five players. Everyone starts with 
00 chips.

The center table is a dark green radial-gradient felt surface with a thick dark brown wooden-looking border, subtle inset shadow, and a thin rounded gold line inset around the playing area. Add understated gold ornaments: “✦ BAYOU CLUB ✦” at the top and “GOOD LUCK, CHER” at the bottom. At the top of the felt, arrange opponents in a responsive row/grid. Each opponent has a small circular seat marker, name, five face-down cards shown as scaled patterned green card backs, and a status such as “waiting,” “0 tricks,” or “folded.” Highlight the active seat with a glowing pale-green dot. The player’s area is anchored at the bottom with a gold seat dot, “You,” and a status such as —, staying, folded, or your turn. Display the player’s five cards as large clickable cream playing cards with dark ink for clubs/spades and red for diamonds/hearts. Each card has corner rank/suit indices, a large centered rank, and large centered suit symbol; hovering lifts it, and selected exchange cards lift farther with a gold outline.

Core gameplay: Implement a real 52-card deck with suits clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades and ranks 2 through A. Shuffle each deal. The dealer is initially seat 0 (You), and rotates one seat after each completed hand when the player chooses Deal again. Each hand deducts a $5 ante from every seat and puts the total into the pot. Deal five cards to every player. The dealer’s fifth dealt card is turned up conceptually and its suit becomes trump; show the trump symbol and suit name in the status bar and log a message such as “Dealer turns [card] — [suit] are trump.”

After dealing, opponents automatically decide whether to stay or fold using simple hidden AI hand-strength logic based on trump cards, high cards, and some randomness. The human must choose “Stay in” or “Fold” in the Your move panel. Folding moves the player into a waiting/folded state but the rest of the table continues. If staying, proceed to the exchange phase. The human may click up to four cards to select them, with a visible selected count such as “Select up to 4 cards to exchange (2/4),” then click “Exchange selected.” Replace selected cards from the remaining deck and restore the hand to five cards. Opponents automatically exchange up to four cards, generally keeping trump and high cards, and log how many they exchange. If fewer than two players stay, end the hand as “No contest” and show the completion dialog.

Then play five tricks. The leader for the first trick is the seat after the dealer, wrapping around and skipping folded players. Show the current trick in the center of the felt with played cards, each labeled by player name. The active player is indicated by the highlighted seat dot and contextual text. The human plays by clicking a card in their hand; opponents play automatically after short delays, using simple AI. Enforce legal card play: if a player has a card matching the suit led, they must play that suit; otherwise they may play any card. Determine the trick winner by trump first, then by the highest rank in the led suit. Award the trick to the winner, increment their trick count, log and toast a message announcing the winner, clear the trick, and let the winner lead the next trick. Continue until all five tricks are complete.

At hand completion, determine the active player(s) with the most tricks. Split the pot evenly on ties, and add the winnings to the winner(s)’ chips. Any active player with zero tricks is “Bourréd”: mark them with a BOURRÉ label in the results, and increase the pot by the ante multiplied by the player count as their penalty/match. Show a centered modal overlay with the gold-accented “HAND COMPLETE” eyebrow, a title such as “[name] takes the pot” or “Split pot,” a Bourré penalty explanation when applicable, every player’s trick result, and a “Deal again” button. Deal again closes the modal, rotates the dealer, resets the hand phase to Ready, and keeps chip totals.

Use short animated feedback: cards entering the trick area should animate in, action results should appear in a small centered dark toast with a gold border (for example “You stay in,” “Cajun Kate plays Q♥,” or “Big Al wins trick 2”), and keep the activity log readable. The initial screen should match the reference state: no cards dealt, Pot $0, Ante $5, Trump —, Trick 0 / 5, READY phase; the center should say “Place your ante to begin,” the Your move panel should offer “Ante & deal,” opponent seats should say “waiting,” and the rules should be visible. Include responsive behavior: on narrow screens hide the left sidebar and scoreboard, retain the felt table and top/status UI, and dock the Your move controls along the bottom; scale cards and spacing down while preserving touch/click interaction.