Belote Royale User Guide

Creating an account
Singing in
In the Lobby
At the Table
BeloteBots

Creating an account for Belote Royale is very easy. On www.beloteroyale.com homepage, use the registration control to create your account. All that is required to create an account is a username, password, email and a country to associate with.

To create your account, pick a username and a password and fill in the appropriate text boxes with this information. Fill in your email address, and a second time to confirm your email. Finally, select a country to associate yourself with from the drop down list. Click the create account button to register your account. If the registration is successful, the message "Registration completed successfully" will appear in the registration control's status. When the registration is completed successfully, click on the "Play!" button to launch the client. You may also start the client by clicking on the "play belote online" link in the navigation bar.

During the registration, if the data provided does not pass validation, appropriate message will be shown so the data element can be corrected. For example, if an invalid username is provided, the registration control will show the message in red upon clicking the create account button. If the username chosen is already taken by another user, the control will show the message "Username already taken" within the registration control's status bar. If the control is unable to establish connection to the Belote Royale servers for any reason, it will show the appropriate message related to the connectivity problem.

Signing in section will be covered in two sections: an overview and the login process. The overview will cover the client sign in window at a high level. The sign in section will cover the signing in steps.

Overview
Sign in

When a player launches the Belote Royale Silverlight client, they are presented with the sign in window. Before the client asks the player to sign in, it will go through its initialization process. For example: validating the client protocol version against the server is one of the steps. As the client is going through this process, it will post status updates to the status bar. The status bar is always used to update the player with various status changes. The status bar is always shown, no matter what is going on in the client. In addition to status, the status bar shows the current client version and the protocol supported by the current version.

Upon successful validation, the client will present the player with the signin window within the client interaction area. Enter the username and password you used during your account creation time and click on the Sign In button to validate your account and enter the lobby. If invalid account information is entered, the client will show the error message in red above the Sign In button. If the username that you are trying to sign in with is already in use, the status bar will display this message and you will not be logged into lobby. Anytime the client is unable to log you into the lobby, the reason is shown in the status bar.

Sign in window	Sign in error meesage

This section of the user guide will cover the lobby features. An overview will give an overall picture of that the lobby looks like and how the user interface is structured. The rest of this section will provide details for table list, table details, chat and functions in the lobby.

Overview
Table list
Selected table details
Lobby chat
Lobby functions

Tables list in the lobby lists all the tables that are currently hosting games. Each row in this list of tables provides information about the belote game that is currently under way. The type of information provided is table's name, belote game type, number of players at the table, the contract the teams agreed to and the score. Continue for the detailed description of each column.

Table Name - The name of the table is the label that is assigned to the table during the table creation process. The name is randomly selected from a list of countries. If a table name that is selected which already exists, the system will re-using the country with a number appended.

Table Type - The type informs the player of the belote game type that is hosted on a specific table. Currently the only version that is supported by Belote Royale is classic belote. Refer to the belote rules section of the web site for classic belote rules.

Number of Players - This shows the number players at the table. Belote Royale allows players to join a table as viewers in addition to the four players playing a game.

Contract - This is the number of points a team must collect to win the game.
NS Score - The total points earned by the team sitting in seat positions North and South.
WE Score - The total points earned by the team sitting in seat positions West and East.

This section shows detailed information of the table that is selected within the tables list. On top of this section is a green button with the name of the currently selected table. A player can join the selected table by clicking this button.

Bottom of the join button is the overview of the table. Each seat (North, South, West, East) shows the flag of the player that is sitting. If the game is already in session, you will see the contract points and the trump for the current round.

Finally, on the bottom of this section is the names and their winning percentages for each team.

Players within the lobby can chat to each other using the chat feature of the lobby. A chat message is broadcast to everyone in the lobby. When a player sends a chat message to lobby, the message will appear in the following format: "sender: message". To send a message to players in the lobby, type a message in the text box provided and press the send button or the "enter key".

In the lobby a player has two functions in addition to joining a table and those are create table and sign out. If a player wants to create their own table, they accomplish this by clicking on the create table button. Upon successful creation of the table the player will automatically join the table.

A player can exit Belote Royale by clicking on the sign out button.

This section of the guide will cover the features once a player joins a table. An overview will provide quick hints on the user interface. The following sections of the guide will provide details on specific features.

Overview
Table
Hand
Declarations
Chat
Score
Functions

The game table shows table specific information on the table header. Table name, type and contract is displayed as the header. A table seat is represented as a rectangle. The center of the table is used to display the played cards by the two teams.

Each seat contains the name of the player their flag and the type of client they are connected with. Currently only the Silverlight client is supported. The Silverlight logo is shown under the flag to show the client type. This area is also used to show any declarations the player might have declared. This topic is covered in more detail under the Declarations tab.

The game hand controls are displayed to the player upon sitting in a seat. The game controls include a buttons and the cards in your hand. The cards are clickable just like any button. The away button is used to indicate other players that you are away from the computer. The player clicks the away button again to toggle the away icon that shows up in the player seat rectangle. Clicking the stand button gets player off the seat. The pass and take buttons are used to either take or pass on the open trump card. Finally, clicking on one of the available cards, plays the card on the table.

During bidding stage of the game, the player uses the "take" and "pass" buttons to pass on the face up card or take it as the trump for this round. If everyone on the table passes up on the face up card then second round of bidding begins where the player can take the face up card and select any suite to be the trump. If the bidding is in second round, the player clicks on the take button and they will be presented with a context menu that will allow them to select the suite. Once the suite button is clicked the trump is selected.

	At any given point a player can on maximum declare 2 declarations. A declaration is made by picking a type and the high card in the declaration.
	The list of available declaration types are: Also refer to the belote rules page for game rule. S - Four cards of the same rank. 5 - Sequence of five is 5 cards in sequence of the same suite. 4 - Sequence of five is 4 cards in sequence of the same suite. 3 - Sequence of five is 3 cards in sequence of the same suite.
	Once a declaration type is selected, a player now has to select the card from the lust of cards to complete the declaration definition. If declaring Square - select any one of the four cards for the declaration. If declaring Sequence - select the highest card in the sequence. For example: if a player has a sequence of 4 with Spade Nine, Spade Ten, Spade Jack and Spade Queen, the player has to select 4 from the declaration type menu and Spade Queen from the list of cards. Once a declaration definition is complete, click the declaration button to declare it.

The table chat feature is used for multiple purposes. Its main purpose is to allow the players at the table to communicate with each other. A player can send a chat message by typing the message in the text box provided and clicking the send button. And its secondary purpose is to communicate game table events to all or individual players. When a player sends a chat message, it shows in the chat window as username: "chat message". Table, events are displayed as category: "category message". The event types possible are:

BLUE - Table related events are categorized blue.
RED - Errors and game related events are red.
DARK GRAY - Bidding related events are dark gray.
ORANGE- Declaration related events are orange.
GRAY - Notes are gray.
GREEN - Play related events are green.
BLACK - Text messages from players are black.

The game score is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the client. This control displays the team's scores. North-South score is the score of the team seating in seats N and S. West-East score is the score of the team seating in seats W and E. There is a date time stamp of when the score was last updated.

There are two functions available when a player is at a table.
Sign Out - A player signs out of Belote Royale by clicking this button.
Lobby - A player is taken back to the Belote Royale lobby by clicking this button.

BeloteBots were introduced with release of v2.1 client. BeloteBots are belote players that are always available. They have their own flag that they play under. BeloteBots are in their infant stages of intelligence. There are two BeloteBot character types. One of the characters always creates a table, takes a sit and waits for human player. The other type of bot waits in the lobby until a human joins one of these tables. Upon the human player taking a seat, three of these bots will join the table and start a game.

If a player does not wish to play with bots, the player needs to create their own table. BeloteBots stay away from human created tables. The bots will only join a table if a bot and a human is present.