LivingRoom Hearts

What's new

Every build of Hearts so far, newest first: 47 of them. TestFlight shows only the newest few, so the whole story is kept here.

Build 47

  • A banner from the last move (a bonus, a bust, a last card and the like) no longer pops up over the Game Over card.

Build 46

  • At a table of three, your seventeen cards are about a third bigger: they overlap a little more, with every card's rank and suit still showing.

Build 45

  • Unfinished online games are checked with iCloud less often as they age, all at once rather than one by one, and not at all after a month unplayed. A game someone left or finished elsewhere still clears from your list, sooner for recent games.
  • For testers: Settings › Beta also counts the game's iCloud requests and any slow-down iCloud asked for.

Build 44

  • Switch to another app mid-game and the game is saved exactly as it stands, so if iOS closes it while you're away, Continue picks up where you were, not at the start of the hand.
  • An online game stays connected for about half a minute after you switch away, long enough to answer a message.
  • For testers: Settings › Beta shows how your saved games are syncing with iCloud, and Send Feedback includes it. If deleted games come back, send feedback from that game.

Build 43

  • New hint: turn on Show hints in Settings and, on your turn, the cards you're allowed to play stand a little higher in your hand.

Build 42

  • The round buttons over the table are clear glass again, as before the last build.

Build 41

  • Each player's score in the game shows at the bottom right of their seat, with this hand's points ("+4") on the left.
  • The dealer's badge is a gold D, easier to spot.
  • The buttons over the table stand out from the felt: dark circles with light symbols.
  • The rules button is a question mark, and the close button is a quieter outline set a little apart, so it isn't hit by mistake.
  • The title at the top of the table (whose turn it is) is centred on the screen, not pushed to one side by the buttons.

Build 40

  • On an iPad held sideways, the cards in your hand are about a quarter bigger; the trick in the middle stays the size it was.
  • The rules are a tap away at the table: the book button beside the close button.
  • Your panel in the players' row is the same height as everyone else's, with "Your turn" at the end of your name.
  • The screen stays on while you're at the table, so it no longer dims and locks while you wait on someone else's turn.
  • If your saved games ever can't be opened, the app still starts and plays rather than closing straight away.

Build 39

  • Your place in the players' row is a panel like everyone else's: your name, your points, and "Your turn" in gold when it is.
  • With no name typed for practice, you play under your Game Center name, so your avatar shows your initial, not a Y.
  • Your Game Center picture or Memoji shows on your seat in practice games too, not just online.

Build 38

  • You're in the players' row (or column) with everyone else, in the order of play, lit up gold on your turn, so you can see who goes before and after you.
  • Players show their Game Center picture or Memoji where they have one, you included; anyone without one keeps their initial.

Build 37

  • Jacks, queens and kings: the letter and suit in each half sit clear of the gold line across the middle; the upside-down half's suit ran into it.
  • Aces: the gold ring sits behind the big suit, not over it.

Build 36

  • How the hand went is a row for each player, worst first, in big type, instead of one long line.
  • Turning an iPad no longer deals the cards on the table all over again.
  • Cards flying across the table land in the right place after you turn an iPad.
  • The banner for a big moment (a hand or round over, and the like) is solid instead of see-through, with bigger, brighter text under it.

Build 35

  • Deleting your last saved game: "No games yet" fades in once the list has gone, instead of on top of it.

Build 34

  • The other players' cards are bigger the fewer of them there are: with one or two others, their panels no longer sit mostly empty.
  • No gold ring where a card lands: on a pile that cleared as the card landed, it outlined empty places.

Build 33

  • Card motion in Settings: Fingertip is gone, now that its fingertip dot is. Lift and place is the new default, and anyone who had Fingertip gets it.
  • Join with Code is a shorter sheet: the table is looked for as soon as all six digits are in (no Join button), and Paste and Scan QR Code sit side by side under the code.
  • Cards other players play no longer carry a grey dot as they fly.

Build 32

  • The home screen, Saved Games, Stats, How to Play and Settings are now shared by all six LivingRoom games, so they look and read the same in each.

Build 31

  • Tap a finished game in Saved Games to see how it went: where everyone finished, and every hand's score.

Build 30

  • Saved Games explains online games more fully: they carry on as the other players come back, and if you delete one, the others are told you've left.
  • Fixed: at an online table you joined, the other players' panels could show you, and leave one of them out.
  • On a Mac, resizing the window during a game keeps everything as it was, such as the row of players' scroll position.
  • Easier to read: the explanations in Settings, Help and elsewhere are a little brighter.

Build 29

  • On a Mac, text and cards are sharp in large windows and fullscreen.

Build 28

  • Played on a Mac, the table fills the window at any size, fullscreen included, and cards, text and buttons scale up with it.
  • In landscape and on a Mac, the other players sit in a column down the left, top to bottom.

Build 27

  • On a phone with five or six at the table, the other players share one row that scrolls sideways, instead of stacking in two rows, so your cards are bigger.
  • On an iPad held upright, the table uses the whole width: your hand lies open and the cards are bigger.
  • Saved Games now says how to delete a game: swipe left on it, or right-click it on a Mac.

Build 26

  • On a Mac, right-click a saved game to delete it. On iPhone and iPad, touch and hold works as well as swiping.
  • On a Mac, Join with Code no longer offers to scan a QR code.

Build 25

  • Settings only shows Rumble on devices that can rumble: iPhones yes, iPads and Macs no.

Build 24

  • Fixes a crash on Mac when opening Practice, Saved Games or Stats.

Build 23

  • Cards now move with Fingertip unless you've chosen another motion in Settings.

Build 22

  • Under the hood: the table does a little less work while you wait for a turn, so play may feel a touch smoother.

Build 21

  • Tap the scores to see every hand and what each player took.
  • Touch and hold the middle of the table to see the last trick taken.
  • While everyone chooses three cards, the middle shows the arrow and how many are still choosing, without repeating the title.
  • Stats show your average and lowest score instead of "for and against", which didn't fit a game without partners.
  • With VoiceOver on, the table now says what the other players do as they do it, and when it's your turn.
  • On the game-over card, every name is the same size. The third and fourth used to come out smaller.
  • In the lobby, notices and chat lines now show at the bottom of the screen instead of over the table's name.
  • A reaction face now rises from the middle of the player's panel instead of sitting on their name.
  • Saved Games say how long ago you played. Practice games you haven't touched for a month are cleared away, but the latest one always stays.
  • Stats only split into Online and Practice once you've played both.
  • Settings shows the version of the shared engine under the app's own, at the foot of Help.

Build 20

  • Tap the scores to see every hand and what each player took.
  • Touch and hold the middle of the table to see the last trick taken.
  • While everyone chooses three cards, the middle shows the arrow and how many are still choosing, without repeating the title.
  • Stats show your average and lowest score instead of "for and against", which didn't fit a game without partners.
  • With VoiceOver on, the table now says what the other players do as they do it, and when it's your turn.
  • On the game-over card, every name is the same size. The third and fourth used to come out smaller.
  • In the lobby, notices and chat lines now show at the bottom of the screen instead of over the table's name.
  • A reaction face now rises from the middle of the player's panel instead of sitting on their name.
  • Saved Games say how long ago you played. Practice games you haven't touched for a month are cleared away, but the latest one always stays.
  • Stats only split into Online and Practice once you've played both.
  • Settings shows the version of the shared engine under the app's own, at the foot of Help.

Build 19

  • The Rules sheet reads more plainly and matches the rules on livingroomplay.com. The note about deleting an online game and the Help line in Settings are plainer too.

Build 18

  • Table Chat, and the note that tells others you've left a game for good, now come from the shared engine too.
  • Joining someone's table, the summary said "Stick the dealer" (a Euchre rule) when passing was on; it now says whether cards are passed. And the turn timer's description says what really happens when time runs out: the computer chooses your three cards or plays a card for you.

Build 17

  • Under the hood, the part that runs an online table (who hosts, keeping every device in step, reconnecting, rematches, the turn timer and chat) is now one shared engine for every LivingRoom game. Nothing should look or play differently, and this build still plays with people on the previous one.

Build 16

  • Join with Code, Invite Friends and the players' round avatars now come from the shared engine too, so they're the same in every LivingRoom game.

Build 15

  • Under the hood, playing online (signing in to Game Center, finding a table by its code, Quick Match, invitations and the QR code) now comes from the same shared engine in every LivingRoom game. Nothing should look different.

Build 14

  • The online lobby lists players the same way as in every other LivingRoom game: avatar, name, and Host in gold, with no boxes around each seat. Moving someone to another seat still works the same way, and the gold outline shows only while you're moving them.
  • Under the hood, the parts every LivingRoom game shares (the design, sounds, haptics, card motion, the turn clock and the game-over card) now come from one shared engine instead of six copies. Nothing should look or behave differently; if anything does, that's a bug.

Build 13

  • The end of a game looks the same in every LivingRoom game: the same card, the same type and buttons, a trophy when you win and a flag when you don't, and you're called "You" in the standings.
  • The Reconnecting card is the same in every game too.

Build 12

  • Join with Code has its own number pad, drawn in the sheet, so swiping the sheet away takes the keys with it. Before, the phone's keyboard stayed behind over the home screen for a moment. Paste is in the bottom-left corner.
  • The stray card-flip sound in the middle of every deal is gone.
  • The "your turn" sound now plays whenever the turn comes to you, not only for bids and passes, once the card before it has landed.
  • The deal sounds are timed to the cards landing in your hand. They used to keep going well after the last card was down.
  • Practice is laid out the same way in every LivingRoom game: the game first, then who's playing, then the turn timer and your name.
  • The big moments now appear up by the players, not over the middle of the table, so they don't hide the play they're announcing.
  • Buttons that can't be used right now look it, the same as in the other LivingRoom games.

Build 11

  • Real recordings of cards instead of synthesised sounds: dealing, playing, gathering a trick and turning a card over. Dealing, playing and turning a card over each have three recordings, and one is picked at random every time, so no two sound quite alike.
  • The thinking dots sit beside the player's name again, and always show: in a narrow panel the name shrinks a little to make room.
  • Join with Code: the Join button sits right under the code, and swiping the sheet away is smooth. Before, the sheet stretched and jumped as the keyboard slid away.

Build 10

  • The thinking dots on a player's picture were hidden behind the row below it. They show now, and a little larger.
  • New sounds for the rest of the table, picked by ear from a set of samples: a softer card flip, knuckles on the table for a pass, and warm wooden notes for your turn, trump called, points, setbacks and the end of the game.

Build 9

  • Softer, more natural card sounds: cards dealt, played, discarded and gathered now sound like cards on felt, not clicks. You chose these from a set of samples.

Build 8

  • The dots that show a player is thinking now sit on their picture, so they no longer hide the player's name.
  • Rearranging your hand: as you run a card along it, the cards either side of your finger lift, tilt outwards and spread apart, opening a gap where it will go.
  • Cards passed to you now stay face up once they land in your hand, instead of turning over a second time.

Build 7

  • A card you drag onto the table now glides from your finger into its place, instead of vanishing and reappearing there.
  • Rearranging your hand: while you drag a card along it, the other cards move apart to show where it will go.

Build 6

  • Cards feel more like cards. Pick one up and it lifts off your hand with a shadow and tilts as you move it. Let go over the table to play it, or flick it up towards the table. Drop it back in your hand somewhere else to rearrange your cards.
  • Hands are dealt from the dealer's seat, face down, one card at a time, then your hand turns over all at once.
  • Whoever takes a trick glows while it's on the table.
  • The phone now rumbles with the game: cards landing, tricks taken, the big moments. Turn it off under Settings → Sound → Rumble.
  • React from the table: tap the smiley at the top right and pick a face. It rises from your seat for everyone at the table to see. At a practice table the computer players react too, now and then.
  • Everyone at an online table needs this build: older builds can't read reactions, so they can't join.
  • The big moments get a beat: the words appear on the table and the game holds still for a second.
  • Players who are thinking show three moving dots by their name, and your area gives a small nudge when your turn comes round.
  • Passing happens on the table: your three cards slide across to the player you're passing to, and the three coming to you arrive face down and turn over.
  • The cards that cost each player points pile up face up beside them, so you can see who is carrying the queen and when a moon is on.
  • The queen of spades lands with a thud you can hear and feel. Hearts breaking flashes the table red. Shooting the moon gets a fanfare.
  • A new sound when the scores are written down.

Build 5

  • The picture and the name on the app icon are centred. They used to sit low, with empty felt across the top.

Build 4

  • The rules now match the standard ones. Three-handed takes out the two of clubs, so the three of clubs leads; five and six take out the lowest clubs and diamonds.
  • How to Play showed another game's rules. It now has Hearts', for three to six.
  • Cards you can't play are no longer faded, which smeared an overlapping hand. Tap one and it says why — follow suit, hearts not broken, the opening club, or no points on the first trick.
  • Each player's points this hand show beside their score as they're taken.
  • With five or six playing, the other players sit in two rows on a phone, so names fit.
  • 1st, 2nd and 3rd on the final standings. The icon says Hearts.

Build 3

  • Three, four, five or six can play. Practice has a Players setting; the
  • Passing goes left, right and nobody when the table isn't four — there is
  • Your cards were laid out as if a hand held five, so thirteen piled on top
  • The Passing switch in Practice and at an online table said "Stick the
  • After you passed your three, the button still read "Choose 3 More"

Build 2

  • Help and Support opened LivingRoom Euchre's page; it now opens
  • Settings → Help and Support now opens this game's own page on

Build 1

  • The first build of LivingRoom Hearts. Four players, nobody's partner, and the
  • Pass three to the left, then right, then across, then a hand where nobody
  • Each heart costs one and the queen of spades costs thirteen. Take all