There's a card face up in the middle. On your turn you play a card that matches it, either by rank or by suit. A seven of hearts can be followed by any other seven or any other heart. If you've got nothing that matches, you draw until you find something. First person to run out of cards wins.
That's the entire game, and it takes about fifteen seconds to teach.
An eight can be played on anything, and when you play one you name the suit everyone has to follow next. That makes eights the best cards in the deck by a wide margin.
Which is why spending one early is usually a mistake. If you play an eight on turn two just to avoid drawing a single card, you traded your most useful card for basically nothing. Hold them. An eight at the end, when you can name a suit nobody else has, just wins the game.
If somebody draws three cards in a row while hearts are on the pile, they don't have hearts. Remember that. Next time you get to name a suit, name hearts and put them right back where they were.
The other half of it is your own hand. If you're holding six clubs and one diamond, the diamond is the card that's going to strand you. Get rid of it while clubs are still live rather than sitting on it.
With two people you usually deal seven cards each instead of five, and the information gets much better. Every card you're not holding is either in the pile or in their hand. Eights become enormous because there's only one person to trap.
If you want it to be a real contest instead of something to do, play it with two.
Crazy Eights is the game that all the modern branded matching games are built on. Same core, same wild cards, they just added coloured suits and a bunch of action cards. If you've played one of those you already know how this works.
Two to five bots will fill the table. The full guide to Crazy Eights has the rules and the common variations.
Crazy Eights dates to the 1930s and is the ancestor of most modern matching games. If you've played a branded shedding game with coloured suits and action cards, this is the game it was built from.
This version is written from scratch to run in a browser. There's no download and no account, it works on a phone as well as a desktop, and empty seats are filled by bots so a game starts the moment you want one. The full rules, scoring and strategy are on the Crazy Eights rules page.
Can I play an eight on anything?
Yes. An eight is playable on any card, and you name the suit that follows.
What if the stock runs out?
Play carries on without drawing. Anyone who can't play simply passes.
Can I name the suit that's already showing?
Yes, and it's often the strongest move, because it looks like you had no choice.
Do I have to play if I can?
Yes. You can't draw while holding a playable card.
If something here is broken, or a rule doesn't match the way you play, email hello@turngames.io. Saying which game and what you were doing helps. Requests for new games are welcome too.