đŸ’„ TRENDING: Blackjack ascension - Collection

Welcome to Blackjack Ascension!

It's a classic blackjack game where you have access to an upgrade tree to get various upgrades (better payouts, passive money generation, ...)!


Start from 1000$ and make your way to a BILLION dollars!

Enjoy!

Tell me in the comments how long it took you to reach a billion!

Enjoyed the game? Rate ★★★★★

Note: 

This game is intended for entertainment purposes only. It is not designed to encourage gambling behavior or promote real-money gambling. Please play responsibly and remember that gambling can be addictive. If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling addiction, help is available. Consider reaching out to a professional for support or go to https://www.gambleaware.org/ 

Download

Download
Blackjack Ascension - android 38 MB

Install instructions

For the web version: Just click the big red button "run game" ;)


For android: Download the apk and run it. You must allow the browser you downloaded the apk with as a trustable source in order to install the apk.

Development log

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Comments

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(+1)

Gambling and Incremental my 2 favourite things!!! This game was honestly super fu and only took me around an hour. (Kinda wish their was a bit more content so I hope you keep working on this :D) 

i am grinding money, but when i manually click chip, it breaksalso, is it intended that it forces stand at 21 even though charlie exists? (to prevent player from earning more through the charlie?)

Hi, thank you for playing and your feedback. Hmm I will look into that bug. Might be because of some rounding errors.

About forcing standing at 21, it does not impact charlie because if you have more that 21, even if you have a 5 or 6 cards charlie, it is considered a bust. 5/6 cards Charlie total must be equals or below 21 in order to win the hand :)

I mean, it's kinda annoying when i have soft 21 with 4 cards and fail to get charlie because forced stand (i think 5card charlie payout is slightly higher when all upgrade is maxed)

why doesnt split let you hit again

(+1)

It should, unless you split Aces, in which case you can’t hit again after a split.

why cant i hit again after splitting aces? that's the best card to split

(+1)

It’s a standard blackjack rule used in most casinos :)

what is this heresy

(1 edit)

Not sure what you mean :) It’s a stylized 7 hehe

why are there 2 of the same card

(+1)

Oh, it’s because a standard game of Blackjack uses multiple decks shuffled together. (6 decks in this case) ;)

oh

i've never seen blackjack played like that

(+1)

Thats how blackjack is played in basically all casinos, it makes card counting harder and increases the play time between shuffles.

was looking for a new incremental to play. loaded this up on the phone. changed the speed to 1.5. lmao the dealer voice

Great game, but you should be able to split on all cards worth 10...

You're right, that is an oversight on my end, I will change that in the next update. Thanks

(+1)

You can now split on all cards worth 10.

(+1)

Great Game I'm sitting on 519sp 

Thanks!

I might be missing it,but is there a way of resetting everything?

Like deleting your save you mean?  For now you can’t (well you can within the browser console if you really want to) I can implement a "Reset save" button if you want. But can you tell me why do you want to reset everything please? 

(1 edit)

Yes, to replay it. I really liked it and wanted to replay it to see how fast I can beat it. I don't know how to reset it via console so i just used a different browser, haha


Not at all the case for me, but i guess it could also help if there's ever a specific bug that halts progress. But once again not the case for me!

(+1)

Ha I see, glad you liked the game to the point of replaying it haha. Yes another browser works, or even the incognito mode of your default browser works too. Still I will add an option to reset the game in another update :) Thank you for playing

Oh just deleting cookies resets it. Makes sense

Yep that works too! The save file is stored in the cookies indeed

Hello!

I added a way to reset the entire progress inside the game. Go to options (or click the gear icon) -> Game Options -> "Reset Progress" and confirm.

(+1)

Neat game! Fun way to spend an hour.

really liking the game, but I jsut bust (not a nut) way too often when I have like 14 or 15, so much room left till 21.
so I either dont do anything and the dealer gets between 17 and 21.

or I draw a card or 2 (the previously drawn ace turning from 11 to 1 makes it so drawing a new card can result in 17 value turning to 16 funnily) and go bust with a 22 , 25 or such.

I do win sometimes but way more often lose.
I literally might just best sit back and wait for passive income to turn the balance to 1 billion plus in a few years XD
But I really love this game for the simple fact that it actually taches me blackjack! (at least partially)
wanted to learn it before but the convolut of rules made it hard.
(like tons of rules for if your second card is ... and the dealers third card is .. then draw another card. if that card is ... do ... etc. convoluted stuff)
At least I get the basic gist of it by now

(1 edit) (+1)

lol I literally jsut did like 3-4 hands after this (via the smart replay thing, as usual) and jsut got over 1 million when i wasnt even paying attention really XD
Now onwards to 1 billion we go!

(1 edit)

seems like you found out that it often isn't worth hitting on stuff like 14/15. Sometimes your risk of busting is worse than hoping the dealer busts. 


Tbf without the upgrade tree you are also at a slight disadvantage when you're playing perfect so it's normal to be losing a lot, that's why there's this loan system and all the upgrades to massively turn the game in your advantage.

(+1)

Really liked this! 35:39 to $1B with 74/150 wins

Nice :)

(+1)

Very fun 🃏

(+1)

Hey, just finished the game and it's great! Thanks for making it!

I have a few suggestions if you're looking for any, though the game is already quite well done.

1. An explanation of what "smart replay" actually is trying to do would be nice.
2. Being able to configure what autoplay does would be nice as well, I've seen it hit on 18 which doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
3. Light up the store button when an upgrade is affordable?
4. Write the hit/stand rules for the dealer on the table felt?
5. Maybe change the table felt when you raise the max bet, like you're at a higher stakes table?
6. Loans immediately become useless after you get the first upgrade that gives you money per tick.
7. Money becomes pretty useless later on in the game when upgrades only cost xp.
8. An upgrade to uncap the max bet, or to remove the 10% bet thing for xp earning. When you are trying to finish out the upgrade tree and you can't bet 10% of your max because of the max bet cutoff it makes things very slow.
9. Have the whole upgrade tree be visible, but with greyed out boxes, so you know what there is to unlock or if an upgrade is a dead end.
10. I'd love to see you make this longer, with more upgrades and such, maybe a prestige system

Overall it's a great game and very enjoyable, thanks!

(1 edit)

Hi, thank you for playing and for the detailed feedback :)

1. "Smart replay" keeps the same ratio of your last_bet/last_bankroll_amount (So if you had bet 1/4 of your bankroll, it will bet 1/4 of your new bankroll). I will add it to the "How to play" screen

2. Autoplay follows the best "basic strategy" (so the best strategy without counting cards). It actually can hit on soft 18 (A+ 7 value) versus a 9/10/A :) (see here:basic strategy explained)

3. Great idea, I will implement that!

4. I 'll see if I can fit the writing.

5. Nice suggestion, I might do that.

6. I think they still can be useful if you max bet and lose it all. But the more you progress, the less you will need loan yes.

7. For now, there is only 1 upgrade that uses money, I might add more in the future.

8. I will add a way to upgrade max bet more after all the others "max bet" skills are unlocked

9. Mmmmh I see your point, I might change that yes.

10. Thanks, I might work on this game a bit more, even though my code is becoming a little messy lol.


Thanks again and glad you enjoyed!

I'm enjoying the game so far as well, and like the above suggestions - I would also add that there should be a way to view what each upgrade does by mouse hover or right click.

If there were better scaling for the display size of everything relative to the window size that would also be awesome. 

(1 edit)

Hi,

Normally when you mouse hover an upgrade in the shop on PC, it should show the name + description + price, doesn't it? And the description tells you what the upgrade does

It wasn't doing that for me when I first played, but it's working just fine now. I'll chalk it up to browser shenanigans. Sorry about that!

Agree with these; I just got the money ticker and then the bet amounts (well, money in general) and rapidly even the games outcome didn’t matter much; I was just getting xp to unlock stuff, and then I’d pretty much just need to go all-in a few times with basic strategy to get to 10B.

Also fun fact: you can win with a 4 x) the dealer should be made a bit smarter and stop asking for card when he’s already winning..

image.png

Still enjoyed playing it :)

If the dealer was smarter than that, poor players would lose a lot more :p

(2 edits)

That's just how the dealer works in blackjack. There's no strategy - the dealer just has to follow very specific basic rules:hit on below 17 and stand on over. It doesn't matter what the dealer is up against.

I don't know what triggered it, but i'm suddenly back to only gaining 1xp per hand no matter what. I have all the xp upgrades, and i have several million points.

Is your bet at least 10% of your total money? it's a condition to have the bonus XP points.

That's probably what happened. I was betting max every time, but i hadn't bought the second max bet upgrade.

I've been trying to get all upgrades, but it's really hard to lose money now. So betting max is no longer at least 10%, even after buying all max bet upgrades. I think either the xp upgrades should always activate at max bet, or there should be a final max bet upgrade that removes the limit on the max bet.

After you get to a million dollars, you unlock another max bet upgrade that got you covered until the billion dollars (the end of the game). Or maybe you're already at the billion dollars stage? In which case, yes the final "max bet" upgrade only covers until 2.5 billion dollars. I will add some more max bet upgrades.

(+1)

it's my first time playing blackjack, but this game makes me learn fast

(+1)

I was looking for a blackjack game just like this one, perfect

(+1)

Fun game and surprisingly addictive. Made me want to keep playing hands and grind to hit that billion !

Thank you! 

(+1)

Made it to 1041.7 B and 2905xp With everything unlocked before I decided to close the window. 

Thank you for playing :)

(+1)

I made 1 million and then lost all of it within 3 hands, its beautiful 

Bug:
-Split
-Hit 21
-Bust on other card
-Dealer hit 21
-It just swaps from my bust pile to my 21 pile making infinite money

Idk if dealer has to hit 21 for this

Its generating in the shop too xd

I'll look into that bug, thanks for the report!

Should be fixed now :)

(+1)

With all the success of Balatro I've wondered if something similar could be built on Blackjack.  I think this is a really cool project! 5/5. 

Some feedback:

- When the dealer has blackjack, the hand should end immediately (like in real life)

- I don't see a way to quickly reset the entire game (but might be overlooking it)

- I prefer the "joker" style power of powerups that you take/give away over just increasing payout % over time.  Keeps the core game of blackjack more consistent without feeling like you're tipping the scales to the player.

(1 edit)

Hi, thank you for your nice comment!

- The hand only ends immediately if the dealer show an Ace and has a blackjack, it is also used in real life blackjack (might not be the most common but still) :)

- There is no way to reset the entire game, I will add that in a future update!

- The "joker" style power of powerups is nice for sure (but it's also more work to implement).

Talented people have already done this with this game: https://purplemosscollectors.itch.io/dndg
(A blackjack game with Jokers/Tarots cards a la Balatro)

So I opted for a simpler way, but I might add Jokers/Tarots cards in the future, who knows!
 

(+1)

You're 100% right about the blackjack element (sorry about that).  Great work and great game!

(+1)

Well, it’s neat

(+2)

A good implementation of the Incremental Card Game genre! Well paced, good unlocks, forgiving but rewarding of basic blackjack skill, lets you count cards if that's your thing. 


My small gripes are that the music track ran glitchily on my phone browser (not a big deal) and that successfully holding five cards isn't a win condition (I know 5 Card Charlie isn't a universally applied rule, but it's been in play whenever/wherever I've played IRL and I don't think I've seen it employed yet in an itch game. It has a nice statistically bad but intuitively tempting aspect when you're at four cards and holding a low stop point value like 16 or 17.)

(+1)

Hi, thank you for your kind comment!

Yes unfortunately music tracks can glitch a little on phone browser, Not sure how to fix that one because of the way it's done in the game engine I use (Godot).

About the 5 Card Charlie, I could definitively implement that as an unlockable upgrade :) Thank you for the suggestion!

If you want to go really wild with it, there's a school of play wherein a 5 Card doubles your bet, a 6 Card triples it, etc etc.

(+1)

i like it :)

Thanks! Glad you like it :)

Bit of a bug/oversight. If you split double aces or tens and get a Blackjack with one of the new hands, it prevents you from playing the non-Blackjack hand. Split a pair of aces, got Blackjack on one, and a third ace on the other, and was forced to lose the double ace hand because the blackjack overrode my ability to play.

(1 edit)

Hi,when you split aces, you can't hit/double on the new cards. it's not a bug, it's intended (as the "No Hitting Split Aces" fairly commonly used on blackjack tables). But it's not written in the "How to play" rules, I might add that :)


But splitting a pair of tens and getting a 21 should not prevent you from playing the other hand.


PS: Getting a 21 after splitting a hand is not considered a Blackjack. So if the dealer has Blackjack and you have a split 21, you will lose the hand.

(+1)

Cool game! I'm not sure why the currency for upgrades is separate from the money you're betting though? That seems like it would give the cash more meaning! Because you can take out a loan anyway, and you get money/second upgrades so early on.

Also minor nitpick but the button animations become very frustrating while playing, you have to wait say 0.5-1 second after each game for them all to show. And because they change position you may end up clicking the wrong one. Same with the redeal hand option, I think it would be better if they have a set position but are hidden/greyed out.

Great work though, I think you could turn this into something really cool :)

(+1)

Hi, thank you for playing and for your feedback!

- I opted for an XP currency to better balance the game early on but yes I definitively see your point :) There is an upgrade that requires money, I might add more that requires money is the future.
- About the buttons, are you talking about the "hit/stand/..." or the "Go to shop/play again/..." buttons? "hit/stand/etc" buttons are displayed right after you have received your two cards. For the "Go to shop/play again" buttons, I can make them available instantly instead of waiting for the results to finish yes :)

(1 edit)

I think it would be nice to have some early exp(and maybe even money) upgrades that require money. Because as it stands now you don't care about your money at all in the early/mid game. It's all about getting exp by playing more hands - these allow you to get all the winnings/losing money upgrades and from then on you snowball to a billion.


I know that's partially a "ruining the game by optimising" problem but i still think there should be some more incentive to make money early.

I agree with you, I just need to find new useful early upgrades haha

(+1)

Hello again, 

I removed the waiting time for the "Go to shop/play again/ Smart Instant Replay" buttons. :)

(+1)

Nice, thanks for the swift change!

Would an upgrade that makes ties pay better make sense? For instance, how about an upgrade that depends on the one to pay out a fraction on losses, which gives you that fraction in addition to your money back on ties?

(+1)

Yep I'll add a "tie pay better" upgrade soon :)

(+1)

image.png

(2 edits)

A couple of interesting bugs I discovered:

Buying “Increase Max Bet 3” doesn’t seem to update the amount given by “Max Bet Money Generator” (level 2, in case it matters).

If you have cards that you could split or double, and you don’t have enough money to cover the additional bet, and then you wait until a money generator produces enough money that you could cover that bet, the options don’t appear.

(1 edit)

Thank you for the report:

- The "Max Bet Money Generator" takes into account the maximum bet you have effectively placed :) I'll update the upgrade description to be more clear about that.

 - Yes you're right about the split/double money bet, I know but I think it will stay that way (due to code limitation), shouldn't happen often anyway.

(2 edits)
  • The “Max Bet Money Generator” takes into account the maximum bet you have effectively placed :) I’ll update the upgrade description to be more clear about that.

Ah, interesting! So, it goes off of the largest bet you’ve ever actually made, not the “max bet” number that you currently can make?

That makes sense, and something like “largest bet ever made” rather than “max bet” would clarify that.

  • Yes you’re right about the split/double money bet, I know but I think it will stay that way (due to code limitation), shouldn’t happen often anyway.

Statistically I think it’s fairly likely to occur, on the basis that ~50% of your current income is a common amount people may bet. If you make a bet, and lose that bet, and then bet the same amount again (rather than adjusting your bet downwards), it’s very likely that you will bet a large proportion of your current money, and hitting just over the 50% mark would result in this situation.

(+1)

Lots of fun! One issue: after winning, you rapidly can’t keep playing efficiently, because all the experience boosts turn off after you can no longer bet 10% of your bankroll. Something to fix if you add a proper endless mode (which should also add a way to scale the bet limit endlessly).

Thank you for playing and for your feedback! I'm working on an update where the goal will be to get 1 billion (and there are more "max bet" upgrades coming). But if I do an endless mode, I will definitively think about scaling the bets accordingly :)

(+1)

Thank you! Took a while to slowly grind enough experience for the max bet upgrade, but once I had it I could start betting 10% again to get experience.

(+1)

Really good one, with a bit more feedback this can be so addictive. I did a lot of BlackJack and loose everything in one bad bet haha ! 

(+1)

Pretty fun. I'm not great at blackjack, took me 42 minutes. For fun, I tried to figure out how to optimize my betting with the Kelly criterion. That could be a neat upgrade to have after the rest of the tree is filled out.

Thank you for playing! 42 minutes is a pretty good time :)