# Hearts - credits and notes

**The game.** Hearts is a four-player trick-avoidance card game from the 1880s; the version everybody
knows today is the Black Lady variant, in which the queen of spades costs thirteen points on top of a
point per heart. It became a household game through the version Microsoft bundled with Windows from
Windows 3.1 ("The Microsoft Hearts Network", 1992) through Windows 7: you against three computer
players, a name prompt at the start, three cards passed left, right, across and then kept, the two of
clubs leading, no point cards on the first trick, hearts unplayable as a lead until broken, 26 points a
hand, shooting the moon giving 26 to everybody else, a score sheet after every hand with the leader in
blue, and the game ending when someone reaches 100 at the end of a hand, lowest score winning.

**This recreation** (https://hearts.skillsafe.ai/) is an independent browser implementation of those
rules, verified against the Wikipedia articles "Microsoft Hearts" and "Hearts (card game)": the name
prompt, the passing cycle with a Pass Left / Pass Right / Pass Across button and received cards shown
raised until you press OK, the two of clubs lead, follow-suit enforced with the original's short
messages, the first-trick and broken-hearts rules (the queen of spades neither breaks hearts nor is
barred as a lead), 1 + 13 = 26 scoring, the moon giving 26 to each opponent, the point cards laid out
in front of each player at the end of a hand, the score sheet with the leader in blue and the winner in
red, the end at 100 with ties credited to you, and the Shakespeare quotation from the Help menu
(Julius Caesar, act III scene ii - public domain). The computer players' default names, Pauline,
Michele and Ben, are the plain given names the later Windows versions used (the first version used
Anna, Lynda and Terri); which name sits where is this page's own choice.

Additions that the original did not have, labelled as such: numbered games with shareable links (this
page's own numbering, 1 to 1000000; the number fixes every hand and every computer decision), the game
in progress surviving a reload, statistics (games, wins, average and best score, moons, streaks), Undo
Card while your card is still on the table (Ctrl+Z), a hint key (H), a score sheet on demand (F4), an
Options dialog (your name, animation speed, message boxes, the score sheet after each hand) and an
optional "26 off the shooter" moon rule that is a generic-Hearts variant, off by default. The exact
contents of the original's Options dialog were not verified from our sources and are not claimed.

Everything here - the card faces and back, the window dressing, the help text and the code - is
original work. Nothing was copied from any Microsoft product, and this page is not affiliated with or
endorsed by Microsoft. "Windows" is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

The code is released under the MIT licence; see LICENSE.txt.

References: Wikipedia, "Microsoft Hearts" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Hearts) and
"Hearts (card game)" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_(card_game)).