You ask another player for a rank. "Got any sevens?" If they have any, they have to give you all of them. If they don't, they tell you to go fish and you draw a card from the pile in the middle. Collect four of a kind and you set it down as a book. Most books at the end wins.
You can play with two to six people and you can teach it in about thirty seconds.
This is the part people miss. Every question anyone asks is free information. If somebody asks for queens, they're holding at least one queen, and now the whole table knows it. Ask them for queens later and you know exactly where they are.
Good players keep track of who asked for what and use it three turns later. That's really the whole game.
Every time you ask for a rank, you tell everyone you're holding it. Sometimes the smart move is to ask about the rank you have one of instead of the rank you have three of, because you'd rather nobody comes looking for those.
You also can't ask for something you don't have. That rule is what makes all this work, because it means every question is a real signal.
If someone hands you cards, you go again. If you draw the exact rank you asked for, you also go again. So a good run can go on for a while, which is very satisfying when it happens to you and less so otherwise.
With two players it's sharpest, because there's only one person to track and memory decides it. Three or four is the normal way to play. Five or six gets chaotic and books tend to complete by accident.
Two to five bots fill whatever seats you leave open. The full guide to Go Fish has the rules, the edge cases, and how to keep track of a table.
Go Fish is usually the first card game people learn, and versions of it exist under different names all over the world. The asking-and-collecting idea it's built on is the same one behind Happy Families and Authors.
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 Go Fish rules page.
Can I ask for a rank I don't have?
No. You must already hold at least one card of the rank you ask for.
Do I get another turn if they give me cards?
Yes, and you also go again if you draw the exact rank you asked for.
What if I run out of cards?
You draw from the pond on your turn. If the pond is empty too, you're out and play carries on.
How does the game end?
When all thirteen books are complete. Most books wins.
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.