Crosscards

CrossCards is a 1997 shareware game from Freeverse Software, written by Andrew Trevorrow (also known for Wireworld and Golly). It is a card-and-board hybrid for up to four players: you build poker hands on a crossword-style grid, scoring each row and column you complete. Released originally for System 6-8, then carbonized and updated through Mac OS X.

How it plays

Each turn you draw cards into a hand, then place one onto an empty cell on the shared grid. Whenever a placement closes out a row or column, that line is scored as a poker hand: pairs, straights, flushes, full houses, and so on. The medieval-themed AI opponents are led by court jester Droppa Mapantz, who taunts and heckles between turns.

Modes and customization

One to four players (any mix of human and AI), with ten AI difficulty tiers, multiple included board layouts, and rule toggles for hand minimums, redraw rules, and scoring tables. A board editor lets players design custom grids. Online help inside the app teaches the rules and notation.

Versions

1.0 shipped in 1997 for System 6-8. The 2.x line (2002-2003) added Carbon support and ran on Mac OS 8.6, 9.x, and Mac OS X. 3.0.6 (2003) and 3.1 (2005) were the Mac OS X-native releases, polished for Aqua and PowerPC G3/G4 hardware. All builds were sold as $14.95 shareware.

System requirements

Original 1.0: any color-capable Mac with System 6 through 8, 68k or PowerPC. Carbon builds: Mac OS 8.6 or later, including OS X 10.0 through 10.4 on PowerPC. Color QuickDraw and at least 256 colors required throughout; the game does not run on a strictly black-and-white display.