Durak: Big Cards Offline

Durak (Дурак), known in English as Fool, is the Russian card game that families from Moscow to Almaty have played at the kitchen table for generations. This Durak card game brings it to your phone with big, easy-to-read cards, a fair random deal and computer opponents that really think. Play Durak offline, anywhere: no internet, Wi-Fi or sign-up needed to play.

Choose podkidnoy durak, the classic throw-in version, or perevodnoy durak, the transfer version (also called passing), where the defender can pass the attack to the next player with a card of the same rank. Play one-on-one against the computer, or at a table of 3 or 4 where everyone plays for themselves. Your opponents are always computer players, never other people. Set the deck and the rule options to match the way your family plays.

HOW TO PLAY DURAK
New to Durak? One game is enough to learn it. Everyone gets six cards, and a card turned face up under the deck sets the trump suit. The attacker plays a card, and the defender must beat it with a higher card of the same suit or with a trump; a trump can only be beaten by a higher trump. The attacker, and at a bigger table the other players too, may throw in more cards of a rank already on the table, and the defender must beat every one or take them all. Beat everything, and those cards go to the discard pile for good. Take, and you miss your turn to attack. When the deck runs out, players go out as their hands empty. The last one still holding cards is the durak, the fool. If the last players run out of cards at the same time, it is a draw. The full rules are inside the app.

A FAIR DEAL, EVERY TIME
Every deal is a random shuffle, seeded by your phone's secure random-number generator. The deal is never adjusted for your level, your winning streak or anything else. The computer sees only what a player at the table can see: its own cards, the trump, the table and the discard pile. It never sees your hand or the order of the deck. This is more than a promise: it is how the app is built. The Statistics screen shows how often each suit has been trump in your games, so you can watch the numbers even out.

EASY, NORMAL, HARD
Three levels that differ in how well the computer plays, never in how the cards are dealt. Easy plays like a beginner. Normal plays a steady, sensible game. Hard remembers every card that has been played and saves its trumps for when they matter. Once the deck is empty and two players are left, it works out what you must be holding from the cards already played and switches to an exact endgame search. Beat Hard and you have earned it.

BIG CARDS, EASY ON THE EYES
Large cards with jumbo corner letters and numbers are the default, so you can read your hand at arm's length. Choose Russian card letters (В, Д, К, Т) or Latin ones (J, Q, K, A), turn on four-color suits, and sort your hand by suit or by rank. "Take" asks you to confirm, so a slip of the finger does not cost you a game.

WINTER AND SUMMER TABLES
A winter evening in porcelain blue and white, or a green summer table at the dacha. Four card backs: a porcelain rose, black-and-gold folk lacquer, and a blue or a red check.

SETTINGS
• Mode: Podkidnoy or Perevodnoy
• Players: 2, 3 or 4
• Deck: 36 cards (six to ace), 24 or 52
• Rule options: 5-card limit until the first discard, adding cards after a take, who starts the next game
• Card size and letters, sorting, game speed, reduced motion
• Languages: play Durak in English, Russian or 10 other languages

ALSO IN THE APP
• Hints when you are stuck, from an AI that sees only what you see
• An unfinished game is saved, so you can pick up where you left off
• Statistics: games played, times durak, draws, streaks, transfers and the most cards taken at once
• Weekly and all-time leaderboards of wins, under a nickname picked from a list. They need a connection; playing never does.

A game of Durak takes only a few minutes, so it fits into a coffee break or a bus ride. Just don't be the durak.