Rook vs Flinch card game
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Rook
Experience a strategic trick-taking card game with a unique deck and bidding system. Play with friends or AI, aiming to reach a target score by winning tricks and naming trump suits. Features color-blind friendly cards and customizable rules.
- Trick-taking gameplay
- Unique card deck (5-14)
- Bidding for trump suit
- Color-blind friendly cards
- Customizable rules
- AI opponents
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Play the classic Rook trick-taking card game on your iPhone or iPad. 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 free to play and supported by advertising. Prefer to play without ads? Rook+, the paid ad-free version, is also available on the App Store.
Flinch card game
This is a digital version of a classic card game from 1903. Players build sequences of cards on central piles, managing cards from their hand, flinch pile, and reserve piles. The goal is to be the first to play all cards from your game pile.
- Classic card game mechanics
- Strategic pile building
- Manage hand, flinch, and reserve piles
- Customizable deck and pile sizes
- Interrupting mechanic for advantage
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Flinch is the original version of skip bo or spite and malice with an interrupting mechanic that allows a player to short circuit an opponent and earn an advantage if he doesn't play well (more on it below). It's a classic game from 1903 with new editions up to 1938 (and probably more recent or even older ones) Flinch is a traditional card game played with a deck of 150 cards numbered 1-15 (you can change decks, card values and flinch pile size to your likings) Players are allowed to play cards in sequence (building up from 1 to 15) to piles formed in the center of the table. "1" cards must be played to start the piles, but others may be played or held at the player's discretion. Cards may be played from a number of sources: a player's hand (five cards to start), a player's "flinch pile" (a stack of 10 cards of which only the top card is face up and playable), or a player's "reserve piles" (whenever a player passes or completes a turn, they must add a card from their hand to their reserve piles - up to five reserve piles may be formed). Hands are continually replenished with new sets of five cards during the game. The object is to play all 10 cards from game pile to the center of the table. There are a set of rules to follow otherwise a player might get "Flinched" (see rules), in that case the player that called flinch take the top card of his flinch pile and gives it to the flinched player to place it at the bottom of his flinch pile.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Rook at 7K against Flinch card game's 1. Flinch card game's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.8) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Flinch card game holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Rook has 7K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Rook ships an update every 2 months, Flinch card game every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Rook | Flinch card game |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (7K ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 62.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 7K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Ad-supported |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 33 MB | 209 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | fishdog.net | Unscripted Engineering |
Bugs and requests
Rook
Reported bugs
4 issues- AI partner plays trumps incorrectly
- Scoring calculator issues and negative scores
- Inability to skip the rest of the hand after outcome is decided
- Irritating background music that cannot be turned off
Requested features
5 requests- Online multiplayer mode to play with friends
- More customization options for game rules
- Ability to play with full deck (2-14) and 4-card kitty
- Option to start bidding lower
- Ability to 'shoot the moon'
Flinch card game
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Rook
No in-app purchases
Flinch card game
No in-app purchases









