Briscola

Briscola 1.2 is Marco Tenuti's Macintosh implementation of the classic Italian trick-taking card game, known as atout in France and trump in English. Released as shareware in the mid-1990s for both 68K and PowerPC Macs, it pits you one-on-one against a computer opponent across a 20-hand match for control of the 120-point deck.

How to play

The briscola is the suit of the card sitting under the pack, and any card of that suit becomes a trump worth hoarding. The aim is to take more than 60 of the 120 available points across twenty hands against the AI opponent.

Mac-specific touches

The 1.2 release moves PICT resources to 16-bit, redraws aces, jacks, queens, and kings as PICTs so they render cleanly under Espi Sans, Aaron, or Kaleidoscope, and makes sounds asynchronous. The pack on the table is drawn 'deep' so you can eyeball how many cards remain.

Italian and Roman support

1.2 added Italian menus, dialogs, and texts, plus Roman-language code support. The Trevisan card set's winning-card highlight was also corrected from earlier releases.

Distribution

Briscola is shareware with a 5 USD fee handled through Kagi by the Tencas group, with Marco Tenuti at the University of Padua listed as author.