Crazy Eights

Tips for Crazy Eights

The key to Crazy Eights is patience with your eights. They are wild, so you can play one at any time and name the suit, but they are also worth fifty points to the winner if they are still in your hand at the end of the round. Hold an eight back for when nothing else fits, then name the suit you hold most of so your next turns are easy.

Play court cards and high cards early when you can match them, since anything left in your hand adds to the winner's score if a rival goes out first. If you cannot match, you draw up to three cards, so it pays to keep a mix of suits in your hand.

Start against one rival on Easy to learn the flow. Easy plays whatever fits, Normal saves its eights and leans on its strongest suit, and Sharp counts the suits that have gone and tries to cut you off when you are close to going out. The house rules on the title screen add twos, queens and aces that change the pace, so try them once you know the basic game.

How to play Crazy Eights

In Crazy Eights the goal of each round is to be the first to empty your hand. Everyone holds a hand of cards, and there is a deck to draw from and a discard pile in the middle. On your turn you play a card that matches the top of the discard pile by suit or by number: a six of hearts can go on any heart or on any six.

Eights are wild. You can play one at any time, whatever the top card is, and then name the suit the table has to follow, using a picker with all four suits. If you have no card that fits, you draw up to three cards before your turn passes on. The first player to run out of cards wins the round and scores the cards still left in the other hands: fifty for each eight, ten for each court card and face value for the rest. A scoreboard keeps the totals round by round, and the first player to reach a hundred points wins the match.

On the title screen you can switch on three house rules: a two makes the next player draw two, a queen skips the next player and an ace reverses the direction of play. On a computer the number keys 1 to 9 and 0 play a card from your hand, D draws a card, P pauses, M mutes and R restarts. On a phone or tablet you tap a card to play it or tap the deck to draw, and you can drag cards as well.

About Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights is a classic card game for a few players with an ordinary deck, in which everyone races to get rid of their cards first. Kiloo's Crazy Eights deals it on a bright teal pop-art table against three animal rivals: Hoot the owl, Rusk the fox and Blip the frog. They do not hide what they are thinking, looking smug when they change the suit with an eight and sweating when you are down to your last card. You choose one, two or three of them and set them to Easy, Normal or Sharp, from a rival who plays whatever fits to one who counts the suits that have gone and tries to cut you off.

The rules are quick to learn, so the game suits families and younger players as well as anyone who wants a short card game against the computer, and the optional house rules make the rounds busier once you know the basic game. Your best match score is kept in the browser on your computer, tablet or phone.

Frequently asked questions