Shane Krolikowski
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3 min read
Four Card Showdown

Overview

At my time with House of How, I contributed to a poker variant developed for DraftKings called Four Card Showdown. The game was a poker variant where the player tries to outplay the dealer’s hand, with the best 4 cards winning. The player can wager more or fold before seeing the full dealer’s hand. A unique sidebet exists allowing the player to bet on their own hand’s value with a possible bonus.

Disclaimer

This project was developed by House of How for DraftKings. All rights to the game and assets belong to DraftKings.

Information

  • Client - DraftKings (via House of How)
  • Role - Front-End Developer
  • Timeline - Oct. 2023 - Oct. 2025
  • Platform - Web Browser
  • Genre - Casino / Gambling / Poker
  • Tech Stack - TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, WebGL
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Contributions

My role focused on front-end development, responding to real-time game state changes provided through server responses.

  • Designed event-driven animation triggers, ensuring visuals match backend game logic.
  • Developed interactive UI components for betting, gameplay interactions, and win/loss displays.
  • Created fluid transitions and effects, such as glowing symbols/chips, vfx after win/losses, and dynamic UI updates.
  • Worked with WebGL / Canvas to enhance performance across devices.
  • Synchronized real-time game state updates with UI animations for a seamless player experience.
  • Ensured smooth and engaging user interactions, from placing bets to reacting to game outcomes.
  • Debugged and improved animation rendering performance, reducing lag and increasing engagement.

Challenges

  1. One of the few games where betting an additional amount was available to the player after the initial bet. The challenge came in keeping the player’s balance synchronized while the active bets played out between server responses; since the server had real-time data and on the client-side we wanted to reveal the updated player balance after the round was completed.

  2. There’s a feature in our games called Last Hand, which will show the previously played hand including win/loss animations. This game in particular had several bet variations so ensuring the player could see all playable actions and it’s result was challenging to resolve without any initial client input. We decided to cycle through each active bet to give the player the information they needed to verify their last hand.

  3. Game interruptions can occur leading to disruption in the player experience, and it was our responsibility to replay the entire hand if the internet connection was disconnected and reconnected. Some games had a more complicated “resume animations” leading up into the point where the control is returned to the player.