Metadata-Version: 2.4
Name: plate9
Version: 1.2.7
Summary: Plate9: a first-person game of memory, wagers and gold plates at The Ninth Ember
Keywords: plate9,card-game,memory,strategy,science-fiction,pyside6
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3
Classifier: Topic :: Games/Entertainment
Classifier: Environment :: X11 Applications :: Qt
Classifier: Operating System :: Microsoft :: Windows
Requires-Python: <3.14,>=3.11
Description-Content-Type: text/markdown
Requires-Dist: PySide6<7,>=6.8
Requires-Dist: numpy<3,>=2.3.5
Requires-Dist: numba<1,>=0.63.1

![Plate9 gameplay at The Ninth Ember](https://res.cloudinary.com/vppzdwxg/image/upload/v1791505912/Plate9-1.2.1-Gameplay.jpg)

# Plate9 — The Ninth Ember

**Version 1.2.7 · An extraordinary custom card game from the multiverse.**

Beyond the windows of The Ninth Ember, freighters cross a distant galactic spaceport. Across your table sit two travelers with very different ideas about risk. Between you: nine concealed cards, a stack of credits, and the possibility of turning every plate to gold.

You have thirty seconds to remember your nine. What happens next is yours to decide.

**Plate9 is an original, first-person game of memory, wagers, rank matching, and lasting progress.** Build a board that survives from hand to hand. Read your opponents, protect a concealed play, challenge a bluff, and pursue the achievement that gives the game its name: nine locked gold plates.

The room now opens onto a larger world: an offline championship, a fictional stock exchange, collectible time crystal sculptures, custom bicycle decks, and opponent analysis that gives familiar rivals a history. Everything plays locally, with no account, subscription, API key, or separate Ting download.

## New horizons in 1.2.7

- **The Ninth Ember Circuit:** a 27-player championship with equal starting stacks, portrait standings, a fixed bracket, and a proper final.
- **72 original Circuit challengers:** rotating opponents join familiar guests and mystery invitations that need no career unlock to appear.
- **Opponent Insight:** expanding line graphs above each guest's public card row, included throughout Circuit play.
- **Nine collectible bicycle decks:** credit-only purchases with individual back artwork, clean white ordinary faces, and fully gold earned plates.
- **Two monumental time crystals:** the Dyson Sphere and Massive Galactic Trader Ship bring the collection to 16 sculptures and the ordinary roster to 42 guests.
- **Clearer Exchange orders:** separate Buy and Sell reviews, explicit final confirmation, and saved purchase or sale receipts.
- **Refined presentation and continuity:** reflective gold, bold ranks, crisp emblems, quick card movement, safer interrupted saves, and less interface work during background updates.

## Nine cards. Decisions that endure.

The ordinary table seats you and two computer opponents. Each begins with **200 table chips**; every hand opens with a **one-chip ante**.

1. **Remember and arrange.** Study your concealed 3 × 3 board during the opening 30-second memory window. Swap positions while it is open. Afterward, ordinary faces disappear.
2. **Commit a card.** Inspect the incoming card privately, then place it face down over an eligible slot. Its face stays concealed after commitment.
3. **Make your wager.** Check, raise, call, or fold as the legal choices allow. Separately funded side challenges wager on another player's match.
4. **Reveal or Stay.** Reveal when required, or use a legal Stay over open gold to preserve a concealed top card and occupied slot.
5. **Build your board.** An ordinary revealed rank match creates gold. Qualifying tie takeovers and draft showdowns can earn locks.

**Rank matters; suit does not.** Pairs beat high cards, draft triples beat pairs, and higher ranks decide within a category. Equal highest eligible hands split the main pot. A revealed ordinary match can improve your board even when someone else wins the pot.

**Catch 9** means all nine slots are gold. In ordinary play, it banks earned progress immediately; continue toward Plate9 or settle and begin another table. **Plate9** means all nine gold plates are locked. Only nine actual locks earns that achievement. A normal gold-pair win does not automatically earn a lock.

Every eight rounds brings the **Trip**, a conditional memory challenge, followed by eligible gold exchanges and another study window. Confirm a replacement for an eligible face-down ordinary card once per slot, then study its new face within the time remaining. Replacements never extend the timer, expose protected Stays, or change the already determined normal draws and Trip card. After the memory window, ordinary decisions are untimed.

## Enter the Ninth Ember Circuit

Open the **trophy button** beside the other top-left controls, or press **Ctrl + J**. Review the event before paying **5,000 banked credits** once to reserve your seat.

| Stage | Field | Tables | Round limit |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Opening | 27 players | 9 | 24 |
| Semifinals | 9 players | 3 | 24 |
| Championship | 3 finalists | 1 | 32 |

Each event draws **you, 14 challengers from a pool of 72, nine regular guests, and three mystery invitations**. Less recently encountered players receive priority in later draws. Opening tables each receive a player from each of three strength bands; the resulting bracket stays fixed.

Every seat begins each stage with **200 tournament chips** and the **standard Plate9 deck**. Opponent graphs are available even without the career purchase. Rebuys, top-ups, guest changes, and custom decks are unavailable during the event.

Nine locks wins outright. Otherwise, after every funded obligation settles, standings use **chips, then locks, then open gold**. An exact qualifier tie uses the event's sealed draw. An exact championship tie shares the title and affected prizes; any indivisible credit follows the original seat order.

| Final place | Banked credit prize |
| --- | ---: |
| Champion | 40,000 |
| Second | 20,000 |
| Third | 10,000 |

Portrait tiles show actual players, stacks, locks, rounds, pots, draft reserves, and escrow. Select a table for closer inspection and follow the bracket through short draw, arrival, and settlement animations. Other tables play actual Plate9 hands using the same referee and authored opponent programs.

Mystery identities open when they sit with you. No sculpture purchase is needed for that encounter, but it does not grant a permanent ordinary-table invitation.

**Save & Exit** preserves the event and restores your ordinary table and equipped deck. Resume the same cards, opponents, and bracket later. Reopening the game leaves the Circuit paused until you resume. **Withdraw** is a separate, confirmed decision that ends the run without refunding entry. After elimination, you can watch the remaining tables through the championship.

Tournament stacks are separate from career credits. Entry and prizes use the wallet; a genuine nine-lock Plate9 can also earn its existing achievement reward. Final prize receipts survive restart without paying twice.

## Guests with character—and observable habits

The ordinary gallery contains **32 immediately available guests and 10 mystery guests** across Guard, Veteran, Super, and Emperor classes. Each has a portrait, biography, playing style, and Logic, Recall, Patience, and Pressure traits. The 72 additional Circuit challengers bring individual portraits and programs to tournament play.

Opponents reason from permitted observations, retained memories, public actions, and uncertainty. They cannot inspect another seat's concealed cards or the future deck order. Different traits and reasoning budgets shape their caution, memory, and pressure.

Ordinary-table guest handoffs preserve cards and funded obligations. Choose whether the new guest inherits the free stack or brings a fresh stack at the next hand boundary. Guest changes and human rebuys make that table unrated and ineligible for Astra's Respect.

**Opponent Insight costs 100,000 banked credits once**, from Career's table tools. The fixed bar above a guest's expanded card row displays a gold lock before purchase and a graph icon afterward. Its graph slides upward and closes downward without moving the bar or cards.

Inspect up to **96 public plays per guest**. Patterns charts show rolling rates over the last 12 revealed plays: matched wagers, unmatched raises, and J–A raises. Wagers charts compare main stakes with main-pot returns. Possible bluffs are inferred from revealed unmatched raises; concealed plays remain unclassified until evidence exists. Free Circuit analysis stays separate from ordinary career history.

The **Ting terminal**, opened with **T**, adds public decision receipts, legal alternatives, wager costs, guest traits, and measured processing times. It retains 25 recent receipts while private cards, remembered information, and unresolved concealed decisions stay sealed. Ting Reasoner 0.10.0a21 and the opponent programs are included.

## A career, a collection, a personal deck

Earn **banked credits, XP, badges, a skill rating, and repeatable pursuit rewards**. Lifetime XP determines career level; Available XP buys sculptures without reducing that lifetime record. Pending rewards remain distinct from progress already banked.

Ordinary tables review a fixed **200-credit buy-in** before confirmation. Insurance assistance fills a shortfall, is recovered from the remaining stack at cash-out, and forgives any unpaid balance. Saving an unfinished table never charges another buy-in. Early cash-out settles accepted challenges but forfeits committed main stakes and provisional rewards; a rated early departure can affect your rating.

The **Time Crystal Collection** contains **16 illustrated sculptures** with stories and dated ownership certificates. Prices begin at 500 Available XP. The **Dyson Sphere costs 500,000 XP** and the **Massive Galactic Trader Ship costs 1,000,000 XP**. Each monumental piece carries an extraordinary Emperor-class mystery invitation. The collection unlocks ten mysteries altogether, with some sculptures sharing an invitation.

Beside the sculptures are **nine permanent bicycle decks, each costing 80,000 banked credits**:

| Deck | Back-art theme |
| --- | --- |
| Flatlander | Precision balance, axle pegs, and flowing flatland lines |
| Mountain Biker | Alpine singletrack and mountain turns |
| BMX | Dirt jumps and airborne riding |
| Ramp Rider | Vert airs above a sweeping half-pipe |
| Triathlon Biker | Aerodynamic racing on a coastal course |
| Rock Climber Biker | Bicycle trials across rocky ledges |
| Street BMX Rider | Street lines, stairs, and rail grinds |
| Downhill Mountain Biker | A paved speed descent with a special aerodynamic bicycle and suit |
| Base Jumping Biker | A rider and bicycle beneath a parachute above a canyon |

Deck purchases use **credits only**; re-equipping an owned deck is free. Ordinary faces have white backgrounds and fine borders matching their deck's primary color. The original custom back artwork stays intact. Earned gold cards remain gold on both sides, without green inlays. The default deck keeps its back inlay and a clean face.

## Trade the world around your table

The **Ninth Ember Exchange** brings **60 fictional companies across 10 sectors** into a dedicated brass-and-teal trading window. Open its graph button or press **Ctrl + E**.

Search companies, filter sectors, build a watchlist, and compare line or candlestick charts over 10-, 30-, and 80-minute ranges. A fixed chart readout shows inspected prices and volume. Follow company news and the Ember 60 index; review holdings, cost basis, portfolio value, and realized or unrealized results.

Trading follows four explicit steps:

1. Select a company and choose **Buy** or **Sell**.
2. Enter a whole number of shares.
3. Review the order, fee, and resulting balance. Reviewing does not trade.
4. Press the final **purchase or sale confirmation**. A saved success receipt shows shares, credits, fees, remaining cash, and holdings.

Sell only shares you own. Each order includes a **0.35% fee, with a 0.05-credit minimum**. Positions are limited to 100,000 shares per company, and the latest 200 receipts remain available. A changed price or balance requires fresh review; a failed save leaves credits and shares unchanged.

Prices update every **20 seconds** while Plate9 is open, including when the table is paused. Market conditions, sector movements, company shocks, and irregular news drive independent randomness without repeating wave patterns. Closing the game freezes the market; returning from sleep processes at most one update. A save failure pauses market updates until saving recovers.

Only banked credits fund trades. Successful sale proceeds return to that balance and can fund decks, Insight, or Circuit entry. Exact hundredths of a credit remain in the Exchange. XP, table stakes, assistance, and pending rewards cannot be invested. All companies, shares, and currency are fictional game content.

## A futuristic table built to stay readable

Thin playing plates combine reflective metallic gradients, bold angular ranks, faceted suits, and a crisp Ninth Ember crest. The lower rank remains visible beneath a committed card during reveals. Quick commitment and replacement animations accompany play; reduced motion skips the slides and shortens Circuit transitions. Controls use clear icons and inline feedback without floating tooltips.

**Focus table** dims the room and closes the surrounding characters' eyes. Return to Room view for spaceport atmosphere and occasional guest blinks. The change is visual and never changes anyone's knowledge.

Short card, credit, and reward cues accompany play. Windows uses native cue playback with recovery after playback errors. Volume, mute, and **Test sound** are available in the table menu. There is no continuous background audio loop.

Career, Exchange, gallery, and guide overlays cover private cards and preserve study time. Save & Exit pauses the entire Circuit; its bracket can otherwise keep following other tables while you inspect it. If a write fails, play pauses, the last successful save remains intact, and saving retries automatically. Resume explicitly after recovery.

| Control | Action |
| --- | --- |
| Ctrl + J | Open the Circuit |
| Ctrl + E | Open or close the Exchange |
| R | Open Career, collections, decks, and table tools |
| C | Open the ordinary guest gallery |
| T | Toggle the Ting terminal |
| F1 | Open the illustrated offline guide |
| Ctrl + Space | Pause or resume your table |
| F | Switch Room view and Focus table |
| M | Toggle sound |
| F8 | Open the table menu |

## Install and take your seat

Use **64-bit Python 3.11, 3.12, or 3.13** with PySide6, NumPy, and Numba. Keep installation and launch in the same environment, and close a running copy before updating.

Install the downloaded 1.2.7 wheel on Windows:

```powershell
py -m pip install --upgrade .\plate9-1.2.7-py3-none-any.whl
py -m plate9
```

For a release available from the package index:

```powershell
py -m pip install --upgrade plate9
py -m plate9
```

The release ZIP includes **Install-Offline.cmd**, **Launch-Plate9.cmd**, and **Check-Plate9.cmd**. Offline installation requires dependencies to be installed already:

```powershell
py -m pip install --no-index --force-reinstall --no-deps .\plate9-1.2.7-py3-none-any.whl
```

Verify bundled files, dependencies, the numerical runtime, and both opponent workers:

```powershell
py -m plate9 --check
```

Supported existing saves upgrade automatically, preserving the table, career, purchases, and Exchange. Before the first save-format upgrade is written, the original is retained beside it under the appropriate `table-save.pre-…json` backup name. Older builds may not understand newer saves. Invalid or unreadable saves are preserved rather than silently replaced.

Your cards, career, collection, market, and Circuit stay on your computer. The next seat at The Ninth Ember is waiting.
