Jacks are BetterJacks are Better

One hand. The whole floor plays it.

Jacks are Better is a roguelike built on video poker. You are dealt five cards and you hold what you like. Then every machine on your floor plays the same hand, draws on its own, and pays on its own. Three machines on the first night, up to a hundred by the last.

Twelve nights, one quota each

Every night the house wants coins, and the number climbs. Six to nine deals a night, three favors to spend on a redeal or multiplier, and a cash-out the moment the quota is covered. Miss it and the house floats you a marker. Miss it again and that night was your last.

• Deals are free and limited. There is no bet. The pressure is the quota.

• A house rule lands on various nights: Cold Deck, Suit Tax, Eye in the Sky, One Draw, Last Orders...

• Pay the night-12 quota to win, then keep going: endless mode triples the quota every night.

Build the floor between nights

Comps are what the floor earns you beyond the quota, and the shop takes them.

• Machines, in banks of 3 to 25. Lease a bank, grow it, and your hold reaches every machine on it.

• 150 mods: specialists that reshape the paytable, crowd mods that pay on how the floor did together, freak hands, tempo, economy, deck, flavor and jackpots. Wire them across banks, franchise a favorite, or install one in the pit where it reaches everything.

• Deck edits that stick for the run: dye a card, foil it, make it wild, shred the ones you never want, twin a jack.

• Packs, opened on the counter: the Shoe, Room Service, Pay Glass, the Mailer, and the Back Room when the lights go down.

• Licenses, stamped on one card: a fourth favor, a third shelf, a franchise agreement.

Also on the floor

• Two cabinets to start from and five denominations, from Penny to High Limit.

• A daily run on a shared seed: the same deck and the same shop for everyone.

• A collection of all 150 mods to fill, 21 feats, and a run that takes about 30 minutes.

• Keyboard or mouse. Every action is one key.