Secondly yes there are 27 unique cards. However I’m talking about unique pairs of those cards. From the way you talked it seemed you wanted there to be only one match for the card you have on the table, yes? If that’s the case then 27 won’t cut it.

Think of it this way, you have two identical tables: one male, the other female. Each of these contains all of your variables, hair color, skin color, and so on. You pick a random value for each table. These values become what the opposite gender are seeking. You then draw the rest of the needed values from the tables. You remove the first two values, what this ‘couple’ is looking for in each other, from the table. You can repeat the process a until you have only one value let in each category. These last values are then used to make the only remaining unique couple. That would give you a way of creating only unique couples. However that would only give you seven in a game if you had nine variables.

Honestly I’m a little confused again. If you’ve decided that you’re going to ask for help form a CS major, you really shouldn’t have anything left to figure out. A few minutes of discussion, and you should get all of the details ironed out.

You are going to need more values if you want 18 cards.
I’m pretty sure it works out. In fact, if my math is correct (3x3x3), you should actually be able to get 27 unique combinations out of those variables.

Also an interesting twist to the game might be if instead of revealing what each cards needs to make a match, you had to figure it out. Which in a way is more like the real dating scene anyway.
That definitely would be interesting. In general, I think the game could support a number of variations. I just have to figure out this one first :).

Anyway it’s really not a matter of discrete math, and yes I had to look that term up. At least I wouldn’t bother to call it that, I would call it ‘how do I write that program.’ Which does contain some math, but it’s simple enough that elementary algebra can do the job. I can lay out the gist of how to write just such a program. However I don’t know enough code to write it myself. Graphic end of it alone would drive me to tears. So yeah your CS friends sound like a great choice.

I can tell you a few things though that might make life easier on them. You are going to need more values if you want 18 cards. I believe you can only get 7 unique couples going at one time with only 9 variables. More then that and you’ll be able to make matchs with more then just two characters. I’m doing this in my head though, and am terribly rusty at this kind of math. So you might want to double check that, by actually trying it out. If you do need more variables I might suggest things like glasses, hair style, and more depth to the categories you already have. Also an interesting twist to the game might be if instead of revealing what each cards needs to make a match, you had to figure it out. Which in a way is more like the real dating scene anyway.

It’s all comparisons, if x=1 then yes otherwise no. Each card simple has four of five values. The first three being the values are integers, which describe the character. The four being gender, which is only require if cards care about the gender of their hook up. The final value is another integer, which describes what the card is looking for. You then tell the program to compare the first three, or four integers to the fourth value. You can then use an if then statement to tell it what to do for a match or rejection.

You have 18 cards. On each card there’s a face. That face has three values: skin color, eye color, and hair color. There are three different possibilities for each of these (pink, brown, black; blue, green, brown; blond, red, brown). Each face is unique. The idea is to match each person up to what he’s “looking for.” For example, when I flip over the guy (gender is just fifty/fifty and doesn’t effect things) with pink skin, green eyes, and red hair, on the back of his card it might say “black skin.” Then I have to pick someone with black skin. But, for them to be a match, on the back of the second person’s card it has to say either pink skin, green eyes, or red hair. From there the hope is that there’ll only be one possible set of combinations from the cards, and that, of course, everyone will have a match.

Does all that make any sense? Or is it just a jumble. Thanks for your help!