New App Feedback

Hey everyone,

I've been working on an iOS app called Video Poker Academy and would love to get some feedback from this community — you all know video poker better than anyone.

The app is a strategy trainer that helps you practice optimal play across multiple game Game variants, paytables, and rule sets. It shows you the mathematically correct hold for every hand, ranks all the options by expected value, and tracks your accuracy over time so you can see where you're improving and where you're making costly mistakes.

A few highlights:
- Real strategy data — not simplified rules, but full EV-based optimal strategy for each pay table
- Instant feedback — tells you right away if your hold was correct and shows you the EV cost of any mistakes
- Study hall -- Learn optimal strategy through a series of curated lessons on a particular game/paytable.
- Simulation mode — run hundreds or thousands of hands at high speed to see how a game performs over the long run, great for understanding variance and expected returns on different pay tables

The app is completely free right now.

You can download it here by searching Video Poker Academy in the Apple App store. (Android coming soon)

I'd really appreciate any feedback — what's working well, what's missing, what would make this more useful for your practice sessions. Thanks in advance!

I only played around with it for a few minutes but it seems to be a good app. My only question is I don’t see where it shows the complete pay table for each game. Yes it says 9/6 jacks but if you’re a new player you wouldn’t know what that means. Or NSUD. Maybe I didn’t see it.

Thanks for the note and the question. The location of the paytable depends a bit on the mode. In Play Mode (where I'm guessing you were playing) there is a clickable area right above the play field when expanded has the paytable. But I do notice a gap that it would be good to see the paytable when selecting the game. I'll add that soon!

What it could probably use is a behavioral conditioning module, to dramatically improve the learning curve of such games. Gambling apps are a dime a dozen but behavioral conditioning as an option will really make your app stand out.

Generating shock from a phone or any other USB port is possible, but cumbersome and possibly damaging to a device so the best way is to use a Bluetooth output to send a signal to a Bluetooth connected, purpose-built electroshock device, with scrotum electrodes. Every time the player makes a mistake, they receive an agonizing electric shock. Then you can program the output to vary the duration and intensity of the shock, based on how frequent or how egregious the errors are.

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

What it could probably use is a behavioral conditioning module, to dramatically improve the learning curve of such games. Gambling apps are a dime a dozen but behavioral conditioning as an option will really make your app stand out.

Generating shock from a phone or any other USB port is possible, but cumbersome and possibly damaging to a device so the best way is to use a Bluetooth output to send a signal to a Bluetooth connected, purpose-built electroshock device, with scrotum electrodes. Every time the player makes a mistake, they receive an agonizing electric shock. Then you can program the output to vary the duration and intensity of the shock, based on how frequent or how egregious the errors are.
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Friends of friends tell me that the electrodes for the private enthusiast market are a significant upgrade, and don't come cheap.