bamb

You're doing okay! It's a pretty hard game. Here's some advice:

• At the start of the game, avoid playing anything above a 4 - the enemy will immediately be able to take out your 5 with their 3, your 6 with their 2, etc.
• You can "gain some time" by first playing a 4, then playing your 3 to take back the 4, then playing your 2 to take back the 3, etc. - try to bait the enemy into playing one of their high cards, and then eliminate it with one of your low cards!
• A 4-4 trade is another way to gain time - if the enemy has placed their 3 and 1 in the same row/column, using your 4 to discard them is a good move - it makes your 5 and 7 relatively safe for the late game. Even playing your 4 to eliminate the enemy 4 can be smart - it forces the enemy to do something else (which you can react to), and clears the board for later trades.
• Pay attention to what's in the enemy deck - even in the late game, if the enemy still has their 3, prefer placing your 6 than your 5.
• Pay attention to the enemy moves. Sometimes it'll set up an exchange by moving your card up or down a row - it only does that if it knows it can make a good trade next turn.
• The game looks innocent, but it requires a cool head. Play along with your morning coffee/tea, not late at night. Hasty play is sloppy play!
• A draw is still good in my book! If the computer doesn't make any early game mistakes, it can be very hard to force a win. Even experienced players struggle to win more than half the time.

Hope you manage your first win soon :)

A quick workaround: start the tutorial and exit out to the main menu - you don't actually have to complete it for `Play` to unlock.

I made it mandatory because the last time I made a card game for Ludum Dare, *everybody* was confused about the rules. I might change it to "Are you *sure* you want to skip the tutorial?" prompt at some point.

edit: I just made some changes to address that. New game is no longer disabled, but if you click it, it'll recommend you do the tutorial - you can opt to click 'cancel' from there and go straight to a regular game. Hopefully this achieves both goals!

Fwiw I designed the game and the AI still beats me 2/3 times :(