Rook+ vs CrowsNest Card Game

Play the classic Rook trick-taking card game on your iPhone or iPad—with no ads, no tracking, and no subscriptions. You play South, partnered with North, against the West/East team. Rook+ uses a special deck with four colored suits numbered 5 through 14, plus the powerful Rook card. In this app, the Rook is represented by a castle chess piece, and the cards are designed to be color-blind friendly. Customize the game to match the Rook rules you know. Change the wallpaper, add optional 1 cards ranked above the 14s, choose whether players must play trump when unable to follow suit, award a bonus for winning every trick, adjust the winning score, and more. HOW TO PLAY Dealing: The deal rotates to the left each hand. Each player receives 9 cards, with 5 additional cards dealt to the widow in the center of the table. Bidding: Players bid for the right to choose the trump suit. The player to the dealer’s left opens the bidding at 70 or passes. Bidding continues to the left, usually in 5-point increments. Once a player passes, that player is out of the bidding for the hand. The Widow and Trump: The high bidder takes the 5 widow cards, which are revealed to all players, chooses the trump suit, and then discards 5 cards. The discarded cards remain hidden from the other players. Depending on your settings, point cards in the discard go either to the bidding team or to the winner of the last trick. Playing Tricks: The dealer—or optionally the high bidder—leads the first trick. Play continues to the left, with each player playing one card. Players must follow the suit that was led when possible. If unable to follow suit, a player may play any card—or, with the appropriate option enabled, must play trump when possible. The highest card of the suit led wins unless a trump card is played, in which case the highest trump wins. The Rook is the highest trump card and can be played strategically to capture a valuable trick. Standard card ranking from highest to lowest is: Rook – 14 – 13 – 12 – 11 – 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 With the optional 1 cards enabled: Rook – 1 – 14 – 13 – 12 – 11 – 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 The winner of each trick collects the four cards and leads the next trick. Scoring: At the end of the hand, each team counts the point cards it captured: • Rook: 20 points • 14: 10 points • 10: 10 points • 5: 5 points Other cards have no point value. If the bidding team fails to score enough points to make its bid, the bid amount is deducted from its score. An optional bonus can also be awarded for winning every trick. Winning: The first team to reach the selected winning score wins the game. You can adjust the target score in the game settings. Rook+ is the paid version with no advertising. A free, ad-supported version of Rook is also available on the App Store.

CrowsNest is the app developer's favorite version of Rook®, and is the default upon installation. It is identical to Tournament Rook, with two strategic exceptions: (1) the Crow card is the lowest trump; (2) when declarer's team achieves the bid they receive the bid amount, not total points captured.  Other classic Rook® versions available for play are: (1) Tournament Rook (a.k.a. Kentucky Discard); (2) Partnership Rook; (3) 1-High Partnership; (4) The Red 1; (5) Buckeye; (6) Dixie Rook. CrowsNest is a partnership card game for 4 players, "We" team vs. "They" team. You and your AI partner (top of screen) are the We team. AI Opponent Left and Opponent Right form the They team. All 3 AI players have identical "skill". The winning difference is up to you! The CrowsNest card deck consists of 4 suits identified by color, plus a "Crow" card which is always the lowest "Trump" card. Each suit contains cards numbered 5 thru 14. The 5's (5 points), 10's (10 points), and 14's (10 points) are "Counters", creating 25 points per suit. Additionally the Crow card is worth 20 points, making a total of 120 points in the deck. (The Crow card can optionally be removed from the deck, in which case there are 100 points.) 1. Play begins by sequentially dealing the cards, 9 to each player and 5 to the "Nest" (4 if the Crow card is not used). Player to the left of the "Dealer" begins the "Bid" process by committing to a total his/her team will capture of the 120/100 points available. Minimum opening Bid is 70 and subsequent Bids must be in multiples of 5, up to 120/100. Players may "Pass" at any time, but then cannot re-enter bidding. Bidding continues until all but one player has passed. If all players pass on the opening round the cards are re-dealt by the same Dealer. 2. Player with the highest Bid (the "Declarer") temporarily adds the Nest to his/her hand, and then discards back into it any 5/4 cards from the combined hand. Counters discarded into the Nest are added to the score of the team that captures the last "Trick" of the hand. Finally, Declarer chooses the "Trump" suit for the hand now to be played. If in use, the Crow card becomes the lowest Trump card. 3. Player to the left of the Dealer leads a card to begin the first Trick. Play continues clockwise around the table to the remaining 3 players. Players must play a card of the lead suit when they have one, except the Crow card may be played at any time. Players out of the lead suit are free to play any card. Highest card in the lead suit wins the Trick, unless card(s) of the Trump suit have been played. In that case the highest Trump card wins the Trick. Player winning the Trick captures the value of any Counters for his/her team, and leads a card to begin a new Trick. 4. After all cards have been played the hand ends. Counters in the Nest are added to the team winning the last trick, and Trick points won by each team are tallied. Team that opposed the Declarer receives the total of their points. If Declarer's team achieved or exceeded the Bid they receive the amount of their Bid. However if Declarer's team total falls below the Bid, they receive no credit for points won and the Bid amount is deducted from their score. 5. The deal now passes to the next player on the left, and a new hand is played by repeating steps 1-4. First team reaching 300 points wins the game. If both teams have 300 or more points, the team with the most points wins the game. If teams have identical scores in excess of 300, a sudden-death hand is played to determine the winner.