Ruff Ruff
Hearts, Spades, Euchre, Whist, Oh Hell and Bid Whist. At one honest table.
Opponents that play a real club hand: a partner that covers your nil, never trumps your winner, and bids to your rules. Every deal is sealed before it is dealt and can be checked after, so the computer never sees your cards and you can prove it. Every house rule you argue about, as a switch. No ads.
Android 8.0 and up, iOS 15 and up, from one build, in preparation for both stores. This page is where each listing will be announced.
Six games, one table
All six are free, at every target, against Easy and Standard opponents. Each game has its own rules sheet, its own statistics and its own place in the Daily and the Tour.
Hearts
To 50, 100 or 150
The jack of diamonds, shooting the moon your way — add, subtract, or choose at the time — every passing rotation or none, the sun, and a table for three or five.
Spades
To 200, 300 or 500
Nil and blind nil, bags at five or ten, jokers as top trumps, spades led any time, ten for 200, every player for themselves, and cutthroat for three with a kitty.
Euchre
To 5, 7, 10 or 15
Stick the dealer, going alone, the farmer's hand, the Canadian loner, a defender answering alone, a 24-, 28- or 32-card deck, and British scoring.
Whist
To 5 or 7
The classic partnership game: the last card turned for trumps, the long or the short game, with honours if you count them. Or German Whist for two, drawing from the stock, or Knockout Whist down to the last seat in.
Oh Hell
Three, four or five seats
A bid on every hand as the deal climbs from one card to seven and back, or runs down from seven or up to thirteen; trump from the turn-up; the dealer hooked so the bids never add up; ten and a trick for an exact bid, or the difference off for a miss.
Bid Whist
To 5, 7 or 9
Fifty-four cards, a six-card kitty, and bids of three to seven books uptown, downtown or no-trump; the winner takes the kitty, names trump and discards six; jokers on top, and a redeal on four passes if you play it.
A partner who plays like one
One AI for every seat, at any table of two to five, at four levels you set per seat, so you can have a strong partner and gentle opponents, or the other way round. It searches thousands of possible deals before every card, then chooses the conventional play among the good ones.
- Second hand low, third hand high. Cover the nil. Lead trump as the maker. Never over-trump a partner's winner. The conventions are tested by name, and a failure is a bug rather than a tuning item.
- Easy, Standard, Strong and Expert are search budgets, counted in iterations rather than milliseconds, so the same level plays the same on every phone.
- Ask the Coach and it shows the expert's card, the reason in one sentence, and how the other candidates rated. Three a match in Play, unlimited in Practice; the unlock takes the limit off.
- A hand review holds every trick of every hand, and with the unlock any trick row can show what Expert would have played instead.
- A Spades bid comes from rolling the hand out and choosing by expected score, calibrated so Expert takes what it bids, give or take a bag.
The computer never sees your cards
The second complaint in every card app's reviews is answered here with evidence rather than a denial.
- Before a hand is dealt, its shuffle is committed to a code, and six characters of it sit on the table for the whole hand.
- When the hand is over, the review shows the seed and lets you check that it makes the same code — in the app, or with any SHA-256 tool on any computer.
- The opponents' search is handed only what a player at the table could see. The type that carries it cannot hold a hidden card, and the app's own test mutates the hidden cards five hundred times per game and checks the decision does not change.
$ printf '%s' '<seed>:<hand>:<rules>' | shasum -a 256
Your rules
Every house rule the leaders argue about, as a switch on the setup sheet. The standard game of each, every target and the most-asked options are free; the whole sheet opens with the unlock.
- Hearts — the jack of diamonds and how the moon scores are free; the passing rotation, the queen breaking hearts, no points on the first trick, the sun and the three- and five-seat tables come with the unlock.
- Spades — nil and bags at five or ten are free; blind nil, jokers, solo, cutthroat, spades led any time and ten for 200 come with the unlock.
- Euchre — stick the dealer is free; the farmer's hand, the Canadian loner, the lone defender, the deck size and British scoring come with the unlock.
- Whist — the long game is free; honours, German Whist and Knockout Whist come with the unlock.
- Oh Hell — the standard game is free; the schedule, the seat count, the hook and the scoring come with the unlock.
- Bid Whist — the standard game is free, to 5, 7 or 9; the redeal on four passes comes with the unlock.
- The rules in force are one tap away from the table, and the rule sheet for each game is in the app.
A Daily, a Tour, and a table for the family
Four ways to sit down that are not another match against the same seats.
The Daily
One of the six games is featured each day, in turn. You play four hands from the day's seed; the expert plays the same four; your score is the margin between you. Solve it and your streak grows; every seventh day banks a freeze, up to two, spent for you on a day you miss. A reminder, off until you switch it on, can nudge you at a time you pick.
The Tour
Fifty chapters of six matches, 300 in all, that introduce one rule at a time and climb from Easy tables to Expert ones, with stars for the margin. Every chapter is verified winnable by an Expert seat. The first three chapters are free.
Pass & Play
Two to five people at one phone, in any of the six games. The table turns to whoever is holding it, and the hand-off screen hides the cards in between.
Practice
Any game, any rules, no score kept, and the Coach without limit — including its bid, marked on the sheet.
Your table
Five tables and five decks, drawn for a phone rather than scanned from a box. Cards deal on springs, a lifted card parts its neighbours, and a won trick gathers under the winner's badge.
- Graphite, Paper and Midnight tables and the Studio, Bold and Classic decks are free; Velvet and Copper, Ink and Neon come with the unlock.
- Four-colour suits, local court letters in every language, three card sizes, a left-handed layout, sort by suit, by rank, or in the order you arrange the hand yourself.
- Play a card with two taps, one tap, or a drag. Confirm point cards, auto-play the only legal card, undo, set the thinking delay and the trick pause.
- Animation at Normal, Fast or Off; Reduce motion cuts instead of moving. Sound and haptics each have a switch.
- A screen reader can play at the table — every card is spoken by name — and the app speaks 22 languages. The result card shares as a picture, with the sealed deal named on it.
Inside the app
Screens off a real device, nothing redrawn.
Yours, on your phone
No account, no sign-in, no server. Every deal is shuffled on the device, every card is chosen on it, and every match, hand and result is written to a database on it. Your statistics are never deleted.
Offline
The engine, the AI, the Daily's seed and the Tour are all on the device. Airplane mode changes nothing but the store.
A backup that is a file you keep
Settings › Backup › Export writes one readable file, wherever you choose. Import it on another device and it merges, never deletes. The app has no way to send it anywhere.
Two switches, yours
Crash reports and Usage statistics, in Settings › Diagnostics. No ad id, no user id, and both start switched off in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland.
The whole account is in the privacy policy.
Free, and what the unlock adds
All six games, Easy and Standard at every seat, the standard rules and the most-asked options, today's Daily, the first three Tour chapters, Pass & Play and Practice are free. No game is behind the price.
Free
Every game, always
- Hearts, Spades, Euchre, Whist, Oh Hell and Bid Whist, at every target
- Easy and Standard opponents, set per seat
- The standard rules and two options per game
- Today's featured Daily, your streak and your freezes
- Tour chapters 1–3, eighteen matches
- The Coach, three a match in Play and unlimited in Practice
- The sealed deal, the check, undo, and the hand review
- Pass & Play for up to five, and Practice
- Three tables, three decks, two backs
- Statistics and history, forever, and 22 languages
Nothing here is a trial.
Ruff Unlocked
One payment, once
- Strong and Expert opponents, at any seat
- Every house rule on every sheet
- The whole Tour, all fifty chapters
- Every past Daily, and all six games on any day
- The Coach without limit, and what Expert would have played at any trick of the review
- The Velvet and Copper tables, the Ink and Neon decks
One purchase, not a subscription. Held by your Google Play or Apple Account, restored with one button on any device you sign into, and it covers what is added to the game later.
What Ruff does not do
Seven facts about the build. They are the product rather than decoration on it.
- No adsThere is no ad SDK in the app, and it reads no advertising identifier.
- No coins, no chips, no wagersNothing is bet and nothing is bought by the piece. Bids and bags are the games' own words.
- No subscriptionOne purchase, once, and it is not required to play any game.
- No game is soldAll six are free, at every target, against Easy and Standard.
- No account, no sign-inThere is no server anywhere in this game to hold one.
- No network neededEvery deal and every decision is made on the device, including the Daily.
- No peekingThe AI's input cannot hold a hidden card, and a test proves it every build.
Questions
How do I know the computer isn't cheating?
Two ways. Before a hand is dealt, its shuffle is committed to a SHA-256 code shown on the table; after the hand, the review shows the seed and you can check that it makes the same code, in the app or on any computer. And the opponents' search is given only what a seated player could see: the type that carries it has no field for a hidden card, and a test mutates the hidden cards five hundred times per game and checks the decision does not change. A failure of that test blocks a release.
What are the levels, and why is Expert sometimes "reduced"?
Easy, Standard, Strong and Expert are search budgets, counted in iterations so a level plays the same on every phone. On a slow phone Expert can take a few seconds a card; after three slow plays the app runs Expert at half its search and says so in Settings › About. The reduced Expert still beats Standard, which is why it keeps the name.
How does the Daily work?
One of the six games is featured each day, in turn. You play four hands from the day's seed and the expert plays the same four; your score is the margin between you, so a bad deal is bad for both of you. Any device builds the same four hands from the date, nothing is downloaded, and today's is free. The other five games on a given day, and past days, open with the unlock. Only today moves the streak; a past day played from the calendar is history.
Can I play with people in the room?
Yes: Pass & Play seats two to five people at one phone — as many as the table has seats — with the AI filling the rest. The table turns to whoever is holding the phone, and the hand-off screen hides the cards until the next person taps and holds. There is no online play and no leaderboard at 1.0.
Does it work offline?
Entirely. The only things that ever want a connection are the store — the purchase, the restore, Android's update check and the rating sheet — and the two diagnostics switches, if you have them on.
Do I need an account?
There isn't one. No sign-in, no profile, and no server of ours for either to live on. To move to a new phone, export a backup from Settings › Backup and import it there; the import merges, so nothing you have is ever lowered by it.
What does the unlock cost, and is it a subscription?
It is one purchase, once, priced by the store in your own currency, and it is not a subscription. It adds the Strong and Expert opponents, every house rule, the whole Tour, every past Daily, the Coach without limit, and two tables and two decks. No game is behind it.
Which platforms is it on?
Android 8.0 and up and iOS 15 and up, built from one source set, on phones and tablets in either orientation. Both are in preparation for their stores, and this page is where each listing will be announced.
Six games, one honest table, your phone.
A card game for anyone who plays Hearts, Spades, Euchre, Whist, Oh Hell or Bid Whist at a real table: fair deals, house rules, and a partner worth having.
Questions? support@crackoncloud.com