YAHT - Yet Another Hacky Terminal (Yahtzee)

A multiplayer Yahtzee game played in the terminal, built with Rust.

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Features

• 2-6 players over TCP
• Terminal UI with ratatui - ASCII dice, live scoreboard, chat
• Dice rolling animation with random face cycling
• Score flash highlights when categories are scored
• Room system - create, join, spectate
• Chat during gameplay
• Full Yahtzee rules - 13 categories, upper bonus (35 at ≥63), Yahtzee bonus (+100)

Architecture

yaht/
├── crates/
│   ├── yaht-common/   # Shared types: dice, scoring, game logic, protocol
│   ├── yaht-server/   # TCP server with async room/lobby management
│   └── yaht-client/   # TUI client with ratatui

• Networking: Async TCP with tokio + LengthDelimitedCodec framing + JSON serialization
• Protocol: Request/response messages (ClientMessage/ServerMessage enums)
• Game engine: Turn state machine (WaitingForRoll → Rolling → MustScore → Done)
• UI: Screen state machine (Connect → Lobby → WaitingRoom → Game → Results)

Quick Start

Start the server

cargo run -p yaht-server

Default port: 9876

Start a client (in another terminal)

cargo run -p yaht-client

Repeat for each player (minimum 2 to start a game).

How to Play

Connect

1. Enter your player name
2. Tab to the server field (default 127.0.0.1:9876)
3. Press Enter to connect

Lobby

Key	Action
c	Create room
Enter	Join room
s	Spectate room
r	Refresh list
j/k	Navigate rooms
q	Quit

Waiting Room

Key	Action
Enter	Start game (host only)
Esc	Leave room

Game

Key	Action
r	Roll dice
1-5	Toggle hold on die
j/k	Navigate categories
s	Score category
c	Toggle chat
q	Quit

In chat mode, type your message and press Enter to send. Esc exits chat.

Scoring

Each player gets 13 rounds. Per turn: up to 3 rolls, hold any dice between rolls, then pick a category.

Upper Section (sum of matching dice):

Category	Target
Ones	1s
Twos	2s
Threes	3s
Fours	4s
Fives	5s
Sixes	6s

Upper bonus: +35 if upper total ≥ 63

Lower Section:

Category	Score
Three of a Kind	Sum of all dice
Four of a Kind	Sum of all dice
Full House	25
Small Straight	30
Large Straight	40
Yahtzee	50
Chance	Sum of all dice

Yahtzee bonus: +100 for each additional Yahtzee (after first scored as 50)

Building

cargo build --release

Binaries will be in target/release/:

• yaht-server
• yaht-client

Running Tests

cargo test

43 unit tests covering dice, scoring, game state machine, player/scorecard, and protocol serialization.