UnderCall

Throw away your big cards, hoard the small ones, and call the show at 8 or under. Call too early and anyone underneath you steals the round.

Keep your hand cheap. Call the show the moment it drops to 8 or under — but if anyone at the table is sitting lower, they take the round and you take a 50-point penalty.

UnderCall is a fast, mean little card game for 2 to 16 players. A round takes a few minutes. A game takes a few rounds. Somebody always calls too early.

HOW IT PLAYS Throw a card, or several of the same rank. Draw from the stock, or take the card the last player threw away. Keep your total low. When you think you are underneath everyone else, call — and find out whether you were right.

THREE WAYS TO PLAY

• On your own, against four levels of bot
• Pass one phone around the table, so everyone plays from the same device
• Deal everyone in from their own phone with a five-letter code

THE BOTS Easy plays carelessly. Medium reads the table. Hard counts the pack and weighs the odds. God tracks every card played, models what you are probably holding, and calls when the numbers say so. It is beatable, but not often, and not by accident.

PLAYING WITH OTHER PEOPLE The host reads out a five-letter code and everyone else types it in. No accounts, no invitations, no waiting rooms. Lose signal mid-game and a bot covers your hand until you rejoin; your seat, cards and score are exactly where you left them. Miss too many turns and it stands in for you until you come back.

The host can lock a table so nobody new can join, remove a player who has left for good, and set the house rules: the calling threshold, the penalty, the turn timer, how many decks, whether hand sizes are public, and how the game ends.

REACTIONS Five taps for the moments that deserve them. Somebody undercutting you at zero deserves at least one of them.

WHAT IT DOESN'T DO No accounts. No sign-up. No advertising. No tracking. No in-app purchases. Nothing to unlock. Pass-and-play works with no signal at all.

Your records — games played, games won, rounds taken — stay on your device, and follow you between your own devices if you sign in with Apple.

A card game, and nothing else.