Gulam Chor

“Classic card game where one of the JACK is removed from deck and the player with the odd Jack is the theif”

01. What the Project Is

Gulam Chor is a unique card game from my childhood where every single player wins except for one person. The core gameplay loop is beautifully simple: one Jack card (the 'Gulam') is removed from a standard deck, and the remaining 51 cards are distributed among the players. Players immediately discard any matching pairs from their starting hand into the center pile. From there, players take turns drawing a single card blindly from the player to their right. If a drawn card forms a new pair with one in their hand, both are discarded. As soon as your hand is completely empty, you win and exit the game. The tension builds as cards dwindle, continuing until only one player is left holding the odd Jack, cementing their loss.

Gulam Chor_01.png

02. Why Gulam Chor and not Call Break?

When deciding to build a card game, popular strategic giants like Poker or Call Break are the obvious choices—but the market (especially the Google Play Store, where I planned to deploy) is already saturated with them. Gulam Chor offered a breath of fresh air with its unique interaction mechanics. Instead of just clicking a button to discard or match from your own hand, I wanted to simulate the physical mechanics of reaching over, interacting with another player's hand, and pulling a card into your own deck. Combining this interesting UX challenge with strong nostalgic emotions from playing it with friends and family made it the perfect passion project.

03. How It Was Implemented

The game was built using the open-source Godot game engine. I custom-designed the entire visual interface within Figma—including the custom deck vectors, table backgrounds, menu screens, and interface button stylings. To elevate the tactile feel, I integrated shuffling, dealing, and card-snatching audio profiles sourced from Kenny's asset packs. The backend logic is driven completely by GDScript; the drawing pipeline calculates neighbor validation dynamically on every turn, seamlessly shifting focus to the next active player if the immediate right-hand opponent has already emptied their hand and won.

Gulam Chor_03.png

Figma file showcasing some design process of the game

> stream closed // text layer read complete.