Bridgebit

Contract bridge with neural network AI, wrapped in pixel art and chiptunes.

BridgeBit is a fully playable contract bridge card game for macOS. Play as South against three AI opponents powered by BEN (Bridge Engine with Neural Networks) — a state-of-the-art bridge AI that uses neural networks for bidding and Monte Carlo sampling with a double-dummy solver for card play.

Features

• Neural Network AI — All three opponents use BEN, an open-source bridge AI trained on real BBO hand data. It bids, leads, and plays with genuine bridge understanding.
• Full Contract Bridge — Standard bidding (with doubles and redoubles), opening leads, dummy play, trick-by-trick card play, and duplicate scoring.
• Balatro-Inspired Aesthetic — Dark casino felt, animated swirl shader background, CRT scanline overlay, pixel art cards, and the m6x11 bitmap font throughout.
• Chiptune Soundtrack — Three looping tracks (menu, bidding, gameplay) plus 8-bit sound effects for bids, card plays, and trick wins.
• Session Scoring — Full duplicate bridge scoring with running N-S / E-W tally across multiple hands. Game bonuses, slam bonuses, doubled/redoubled penalties, vulnerability — the works.
• Trump Indicator — Always know what's trump with a persistent badge showing the suit and color.
• Trick Winner Display — See who won each trick with a glowing highlight and announcement.

How to Play

1. Download and unzip the game.
2. Open Terminal, cd to the game folder, and run ./launch.sh — this starts the AI engine and opens the game.
3. Wait for the AI engine to load (~30 seconds on first launch).
4. Click NEW GAME to start.
5. Bidding: Use the bidding box to make your bids. The AI bids for North, East, and West.
6. Card Play: Click your cards to play them. When you're declarer, you also play dummy's cards. Legal cards glow green.
7. Scoring: After each hand, see the result and running score. Click NEXT HAND to continue.

Bridge Basics (for new players)

Bridge is a trick-taking card game for four players in two partnerships (North-South vs East-West). The game has two phases:

Bidding: Players bid for a contract — how many tricks they think their partnership can take. The highest bidder's partnership must fulfill the contract. Suits rank: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades, No Trump.

Play: 13 tricks are played. You must follow the suit led if possible. The highest card of the led suit wins, unless a trump card is played. The declarer's partner (dummy) lays their hand face-up and the declarer plays both hands.

Controls

• Click cards to play them (legal cards glow green and lift up)
• Bidding box appears when it's your turn to bid
• MENU (top right) — Scorecard, New Session, Mute Audio, Quit

System Requirements

• macOS (Apple Silicon / M1 or later)
• ~500 MB disk space
• The AI engine runs entirely locally — no internet connection required

Credits

• AI Engine: BEN (Bridge Engine with Neural Networks) by Lorand Dali — GPL v3
• Double-Dummy Solver: DDS by Bo Haglund — Apache 2.0
• Card Art: KereneL — CC0
• Music: OpenGameArt contributors — CC0
• Sound Effects: FrogPog, BMacZero — CC0
• Font: m6x11 by Daniel Linssen
• Inspired by: Ginsberg's Intelligent Bridge Player (1999) and Balatro by LocalThunk

Built with Tauri v2, React, TypeScript, and Python. v0.1.0 — a Without Banners production.