Free Play: how to run literally any card game

Every group has a game nobody else plays: a regional variant, something your grandmother taught you, a house rule that has mutated over twenty years. Free Play is the mode for that. The app deals, tracks and records — it does not referee.

What Free Play gives you

An open table with a standard deck and no enforced turn order. From there you have the same tools as any other game:

• A deck you can shuffle, deal from and rebuild.
• A discard pile, plus as many shared piles as the table needs.
• Free positioning — cards go wherever you drop them on the felt, not into fixed slots.
• Face-up and face-down play, per card.
• A scoreboard, chat, and a complete activity log.

The five tools that cover most games

1. Shared piles

A pile is a stack any player can use. Use them as draw piles, kitties, community cards, trick stacks or a “won cards” pile per player. Drag cards in to add, click to take the top card, and right-click to flip, lock, rename or reveal a pile to specific players.

2. Card groups

Select cards in your hand, name the group, and drop it on the table as a labelled meld tagged with your colour. Other players can add to it. This is how you run Rummy-family games, Canasta melds or any “lay down a set” rule.

3. Show

Reveal specific cards to specific players without playing them. The cards stay in your hand. It covers partner signalling, a dealer showing one hole card, or proving a claim at the end of a hand.

4. Give

Drag a card onto another player to pass it to them. Enable it under Settings › Table. Passing rounds — Hearts, Old Maid, Spoons, Donkey — all rely on this.

5. The custom Deal Sheet

Not every game deals evenly. The Deal Sheet’s Custom mode sets a different count per player across multiple rounds — three each, then two each, then one to the kitty — and saves the pattern for next time.

Worked example: a trick-taking game with a kitty

1. Set upHost a Free Play table, standard deck, six seats. Enable turns and put the players in seating order.
2. Create the kittyDrag three cards from the deck onto the felt to make a pile, right-click it, rename it “Kitty” and flip it face down.
3. DealOpen the Deal Sheet, Equal mode, eight cards each.
4. Set trumpSettings › Table › trump suit. Everyone sees it on the table.
5. Play tricksEach player drags one card to the felt; the winner clicks the cards to take them, or drags them onto their own won-tricks pile.
6. ScoreOpen the scoreboard in Tally mode and add points at the end of each hand, or use Judgement if players bid first.

When to use a preset instead

If your game is in the catalog, start from the preset — it loads the right deck, a sensible deal size and the turn rules, and you can still change anything afterwards. Free Play is for the games that are not there, or for when you want the app to stay out of the way entirely.