Major Bug Fixes - Joker Mode reneging fixed — Players holding a Little or Big Joker were incorrectly allowed to throw off when spades were led, then play their joker later. Both jokers are now properly treated as trump and must be played when spades are led. - Partner no longer trumps your winning book — When you held the highest remaining card in a suit, your partner was wasting trump to protect a trick already won. She now recognizes it's safe and discards low, saving high spades for when they're needed. - Partner no longer leads suits the nil player is void in — When busting an opponent's nil, your partner was leading suits the nil player already showed void in, giving them free discards of dangerous cards. She now targets suits the nil player must follow. - Nil protection overhauled — A bug caused your partner to lead high into suits where you held the Ace, directly busting your nil. Strategy is rebuilt around actual probability of nil holding dangerous cards. - Partner plays correct trump when protecting nil — Trumping an off-suit trick now uses the lowest trump to save K and A of spades. When spades are led, she plays her highest trump to shut out opponents. - AI mistakes paused during nil — The error rate for lower difficulty levels was incorrectly firing during nil bids, causing random plays that busted nil. Mistakes are now suspended while any nil bid is active. - Bust nil strategy fixed — AI now targets suits where the nil bidder holds only high cards with nothing to duck with. Previously the AI sometimes gave nil players free discards instead. Gameplay Improvements - Smarter nil protection — Lead decisions now use a probability model. When one opponent shows void in a suit with the Ace still out, risk correctly reads as 50/50. Both opponents void pushes risk to 100% and partner switches suits immediately. - Partners Best awareness — If you sent your highest club to your partner during Partners Best, she now knows clubs are safe and prioritizes leading them. - Opponent nil protection scales by difficulty — Easy opponents never protect their nil partner. Standard protects 70% of the time. Hard always protects fully using the same logic as your partner. - Opponents try to bust your nil — On Standard, opponents actively try to bust your nil 75% of the time. On Hard, they always try. Visual and UI Improvements - Nil bust notification — A bold red banner appears the instant any nil bid is busted, yours, your partner's, or an opponent's. - Bag danger warnings — Score bar shows an orange badge at 7 bags and a pulsing red badge at 9 bags. A warning banner also appears on the round-over screen. - Winning card highlight — The card currently winning the in-progress trick glows gold so you always know who's taking it. - Playable card shimmer — On your turn, legal cards glow purple to draw your eye to your options. - Trump card tint — Spades in the trick circle have a subtle purple tint, separating trump from off-suit at a glance. - Floating score deltas — Your score change floats up in green or red on the round-over screen so you immediately see what happened. - Splash screen redesigned — New full-screen Gothic Spades splash with particle effects, animated glow rings, and the game title.

- Smarter AI — Fixed a bug where the AI couldn't correctly track which cards had already been played. This affects nil protection, knowing when to lead high, and bag-forcing strategy. The AI will play noticeably better now. - Fixed stats not saving correctly — The "Worst Final Score" in your stats would reset every time you closed the app. That's now fixed and saves properly. - Fixed double sound effects — Card play sounds and the "Spades Broken" sound were firing twice simultaneously on every trigger. Audio should sound cleaner now. - Performance & stability improvements — Various under-the-hood code cleanup.

Improved partner AI nil protection Fixed scoring when a nil bid is busted Fixed bag counting when nil bidder takes tricks Improved card layout on all devices Larger, brighter cards on iPhone Players now anchored around the table on all iPad sizes Layout optimized for iPhone, iPad 11-inch, and iPad 13-inch