Phyllis is a two player card game that you can play against your Pocket PC.

It's a bizarre game, and at first it doesn't seem to have any sort of stragy, just a play by the rules game. Then you get near the end and things get really intresting. It's a great game, with easy rules to entice a newbie.

Players and Cards

The game is for 2 to 5 players, and uses a standard 52 card deck. The cards are ordered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Jack, Queen, King, Ace, 2. The 2 card is both high and low, and the 10 card acts as a destroy card. Cards' suit is irrelevant.

Object of the game

To get rid of all of one's cards. The game is played until one player remains. The loser must deal the next game.

Deal

Each player is dealt 9 cards. The first three are placed face down. No one, including the player, sees these cards until each one is put into play. The next three are dealt face up. The final three are dealt as the players' hand. The remaining cards are placed in a draw pile.

Play

The player with the lowest cards showing goes first, the 2 and 10 cards don't count for this.

For each turn, the player attempts to play a card that is equal to, or beats the card on the discard pile. The discard pile is initially empty, so any card may be played. If a player has more than one of the same card, any number of the cards can be played at the same time. Playing a ten destroys the discard pile, it is taken out of play, and the player to destroy the pile goes again. Also, if three of the same cards are on the top of the discard pile, it is destroyed, and the player to play the destroy card goes again. If the player is unable, or unwilling to play, they can pick up the discard pile. The player can also attempt to play the first card on the draw pile, however, if this card cannot be played, they must pickup all the cards from the discard pile and the card they drew. This is referred to as the "hand of god." At the end of each turn, if the player has less than three cards, they draw enough cards from the draw pile to have three cards in their hand.

When the draw pile is exhausted, and the player has no more cards in their hand, they must play a card from the pile of face up cards. The normal rules apply, and if they must pickup cards from the discard pile, those become their hand, and they only play from their hand until it is exhausted again. Once all of the face-up cards have been played, they pick one of the facedown cards and attempt to play it. Again, if the discard pile must be picked up, they play from their hand only until it is exhausted.

As players run out of cards completely, they drop out of the game. The last player left with cards is the loser, and must deal the next game.

Update Description:

v0.47:

- Now rules-complete with the addition of these two rules: you can drop more than one similiar card from the faceup pile or you can pickup a faceup card when you pick up the discard pile with no hand.

- Updated How To Play html page with new rules.

- Smart AI deals with new end-game rules.

v0.46:

- When the game ends, you see face down cards.

- The dialog to pick how many similar cards to drop now comes up closer to where the stylus is.

- Major architectural changes that will allow me to implement a better UI for the computer, and two player play (over IR or network).

- The basic AI for the computer is slightly smarter.

- Optional medium level difficulty AI.

- Tap-and-hold on the discard or draw pile will display how many cards are remaining.

v0.43:

- Initial release to public.