Metadata-Version: 2.4
Name: plate9
Version: 1.1.4
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, with Varek Sorn and Astra](https://res.cloudinary.com/vppzdwxg/image/upload/v1791292596/Plate9-Gameplay-Varek-Astra.jpg)

# Plate9 — The Ninth Ember

**Version 1.1.4 · A first-person card game of memory, wagers, and patient decisions.**

Take your seat at The Ninth Ember, a club overlooking the traffic of a galactic spaceport. Across the table sit two travelers with different habits, different strengths, and nine cards of their own. A neutral dealer keeps the game moving. What you remember, what you reveal, and what you are willing to risk shape every round.

Plate9 combines a concealed 3 × 3 card board with betting, persistent gold plates, and carefully timed reveals. Win the pot, develop your board, and work toward the ninth lock that gives the game its name.

Plate9 includes an **advanced version of Ting Reasoner (0.10.0a21)**, bundled directly with the game. **NumPy and Numba are required** for its numerical runtime and are installed automatically during a standard pip installation. No separate Ting download is needed.

## A place to settle in

Sound uses brief card, credit and reward cues only. There is no looping background audio; returning from Career or the crystal collection preserves the sound setting. Resume the paused table to continue play. The selected guest’s large profile portrait reuses the same blink artwork.

The table is built for a seated, first-person view: character portraits across the felt, clear credit panels, purpose-built card artwork, and a full-screen guest gallery. Slow lighting shifts, occasional blinks from every guest, card animations and short table effects give the room its pace.

Inspect either opponent's public board through the small cards icon in their nameplate. The expanded row makes exposed cards easier to read while keeping concealed cards covered. A short win-or-tie summary beside the title crest carries the last result into the next hand.

Use the table menu to adjust sound, reduce motion, or focus the view on the table. **Focus table** is a Plate9 signature: as the room darkens, both opponents and the dealer close their eyes and hold them shut. Return to **Room view** to open their eyes and resume guest blinking. The dealer stays open-eyed without blinking in Room view. Reduced motion stops incidental blinks while preserving the selected open or closed pose. This visual effect never changes what the opponents know or how the rules play. Once the memory window closes, ordinary decisions have no turn timer. There is time to think.

## Your first round

A standard table has three players: you and two computer opponents. Each seat begins with **200 credits** after a clear buy-in confirmation, and each round starts with a **one-credit ante**.

1. **Remember your board.** Study and arrange your nine ordinary cards during the opening 30-second memory window. When it closes, their positions stay fixed and their faces are concealed.
2. **Place your incoming card.** Privately inspect the new card, choose a playable slot, and commit it face down over the card already there. You cannot peek at it again after committing.
3. **Decide the price.** Check, raise, call, or fold as the legal choices allow. Accepted side challenges add a separate wager on whether another player's committed play will match.
4. **Reveal or Stay.** Reveal your current play, or choose a legal Stay over an open gold plate. The dealer resolves eligible hands, challenges, and any special showdown.
5. **Build your position.** Credits settle, ordinary rank matches become gold plates, and qualifying gold-plate victories can earn locks. Then the action marker moves and the next round begins.

Matches use **rank, not suit**. A pair beats a high card; within either category, the higher rank wins. A triple is possible during a draft showdown and outranks a pair. Equal highest eligible hands split the pot.

An ordinary match can improve your board even when you lose the pot. If you remember a seven beneath your incoming seven, that revealed pair becomes a face-up gold plate even if another player wins with Kings.

## Gold plates, Stays, and the ninth lock

Gold changes what you can plan. An open gold plate is visible, and a legal **Stay** preserves a regular card over it face down. Held cards remain protected until the rules allow them to reveal. Keeping a strong possibility concealed also occupies a slot you might need later.

A **tie takeover** lets a qualifying higher gold pair challenge two opponents' tied pairs. When all three current plays legally Stay, a **draft showdown** introduces a separate dealer comparison card and the possibility of a triple. Draft losses can require an additional payment reserved before the showdown.

After every eight completed rounds, the **Trip** renews the cycle. When locked counts qualify, it offers an additional memory challenge. Eligible gold plates can also be exchanged for ordinary cards. Then a **30-second replacement window** opens: click an ordinary face-down slot and confirm a new card. Each eligible slot can be refreshed once. Only its new face is shown, for the time left on the clock. Declining reveals nothing; Stays remain protected.

**Fixed play deck, independent replacement deck:** the normal 52-card deck supplies the opening 27 board cards, eight three-player deals, and the final conditional Trip. At a Trip boundary, the next 24 deals and Trip are sealed before any replacement is drawn. Fresh slot cards come exclusively from a separate 52-card replacement deck. Replacing a slot cannot change those queued draws or the Trip, and returned cards stay with their own supply. The gold comparison draft remains separate.

Each regular card is tracked by its source deck as well as rank and suit. The same printed face can occur once in each separate deck; duplicates within a deck are forbidden. Matches still use rank only. The additional replacement supply and bounded ordinary-slot exchange are explicit extensions to Rulebook 1.0; betting, Stays, lock eligibility and Trip scoring retain their rules.

Fresh tables use this arrangement immediately. Original single-deck saves gain the replacement feature at their next Trip. Existing 1.1.1 two-deck tables retain their cards and rules until a full table ending or Plate9 reset, so no live deal or protected Stay is rewritten.

There are two board milestones:

- **Catch 9:** all nine slots have become gold plates. Earned XP, badges and credit rewards bank immediately. Continue toward Plate9 or settle the current table without a rating change, then confirm a new buy-in.
- **Plate9:** all nine gold plates are locked. Final obligations settle, the achievement is recorded, and a new fixed buy-in can begin a fresh game.

The illustrated in-game guide explains the exact Stay, challenge, lock, draft, and Trip conditions with worked card examples.

## Choose your company

All **32 guests** are available from the start. Open the left guest rail, choose a seat, and explore two rows of portraits by dragging, scrolling, or using the gallery controls. Each profile includes a biography, a playing style, and horizontal bars for **Logic, Recall, Patience, and Pressure**.

| Class | Guests | Character of play |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Guard | 10 | Approachable opponents with varied recall, caution, and appetite for risk. |
| Veteran | 10 | More experienced play, stronger observation, and persistent pressure. |
| Super | 8 | Careful prices, deliberate uncertainty, and disciplined counterplay. |
| Emperor | 4 | The deepest probability sampling and most consistent logical play. |

Meet **Varek Sorn**, the unlisted sovereign behind lightly smoked glasses; **Gus Perrin**, an unusually patient courier with a cigar; and **Astra**, the white-and-black android whose courtesy accompanies formidable reasoning. Astra's profile carries the credit **Co-Creator of Staqtapp-TDS MC**.

Opponent choices respond to remembered cards, public actions, available credits, and uncertainty. Their profile bars describe configured tendencies. Every opponent uses the same legal information limits: concealed opposing cards and future deck order stay hidden.

You can change guests during a table. The arriving guest inherits the seat's cards and funded obligations; choose its existing free credits or a fresh 200-credit stack at the next hand boundary. A changed-lineup table keeps normal play rewards but does not change your skill rating or award Astra's Respect.

## Build a club record

Your **banked credit balance** carries across tables. Every new table requires a fixed **200-credit buy-in**. The confirmation shows the exact deduction, any insurance assistance and your remaining balance. At zero credits, a human can rebuy exactly 200 between hands; cards, Stays and the draw order stay intact. Rebuy tables are unrated and cannot earn Astra's Respect.

**Cash out & leave** settles accepted challenges, forfeits committed main stakes and banks your remaining stack after assistance recovery. Natural endings cash out automatically. Assistance covers a buy-in shortfall and is recovered from the final stack first; an unpaid remainder is forgiven. Saving and resuming the same unfinished table never charges another buy-in. Banked credits also buy uniform card finishes.

**Available XP buys time crystal sculptures. Lifetime XP records everything you have earned.** Purchases reduce available XP only; your historical total and career level never fall. Catch 9 awards **1,500 XP**, Plate9 **7,500 XP**, and a qualifying victory with Astra **3,000 XP**. These milestones can reward again on each new table. Other milestones and normal play also earn XP.

The **XP pursuits** tab tracks settled hands, new gold plates, locks, Trip matches and natural table completion. Each completed pursuit immediately banks its reward. Completing all five adds a **250-XP bonus** and refreshes the set for another cycle. Lifetime XP continues accumulating. Reloading cannot duplicate rewards.

The **Time Crystal Collection** contains fourteen sculptures priced from **500 to 45,000 available XP**. Inspect a piece, review its cost and confirm. Its dated certificate stays in your collection, and its mystery guest is revealed immediately.

There are **eight playable mystery guests: two Guard, two Veteran, two Super and two Emperor**. Higher classes require more valuable sculptures. Some sculptures share an invitation; the shop identifies that relationship and shows when a guest is already unlocked. All 32 original guests remain available. New guests have distinct portraits, natural blinking and bounded, class-appropriate Ting programs.

Existing saves retain their current table, credit stack, lifetime XP, collection and opponent observations. Earlier lifetime XP becomes available XP at the upgrade, and previously owned sculptures unlock their mapped guests without another purchase.

## Learn from your seat

Open the right **Ting** rail or press **T** to inspect actual opponent decision activity: the reasoning stage, legal checks, processing time, and committed action. Sealed decisions remain private until their phase resolves. Clear the display whenever you wish; the guest’s retained observations stay intact.

Detailed receipts show how many legal options were evaluated and admitted, the types of actions considered, public wager costs, credit consequences, the recent public betting trail, guest traits and the phase-specific selection method. Measured timings separate input processing, sampling, rules, validation and selection; cached programs are identified. These counters reuse the existing computation without extra simulations. The closed terminal stops display updates and retains the latest 25 receipts, rolling off the oldest automatically. Toggle **Details** for a compact log; scrolling pauses live following. Private scores and remembered cards never appear.

Press **F1** for the illustrated HTML player guide, included with the game and available offline. Its card examples explain the round sequence and the unusual situations that make Plate9 rewarding to learn.

| Control | Action |
| --- | --- |
| C | Open the guest gallery. |
| R | Open career, XP pursuits and crystals. |
| T | Toggle the Ting decision terminal. |
| F1 | Open the illustrated player guide. |
| Ctrl + Space | Pause or resume the table. |
| M | Toggle sound. |
| F8 | Open the table menu. |
| F | Switch between room and table focus. |

Opening the guide or guest gallery pauses play. Resume explicitly when you return. During memory study, pausing covers your cards and preserves the remaining viewing time.

## Install and play

Use **64-bit Python 3.11, 3.12, or 3.13**. The desktop application uses PySide6, NumPy, and Numba; a normal installation installs its declared dependencies.

On Windows, install and launch with the same Python:

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

For an offline wheel installation where the required libraries are already installed:

```powershell
py -m pip install --no-index --force-reinstall --no-deps .\plate9-1.1.4-py3-none-any.whl
py -m plate9
```

To check the installed libraries, bundled files, numerical execution, and opponent workers:

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

**Ting Reasoner is included.** Each guest has a dedicated Ting rule program, supported by Plate9's memory and probability models. Two independent opponent worker processes keep decision work separate from the interface. Play runs locally, with no account, API key, or separate Ting download required.
