Call Break Express

Call Break Express deals the game played across Nepal and northern India to the phones around the table. Four players, every one of them for themselves. One hosts, the rest join — over Wi-Fi, over Bluetooth, or through Google Nearby.

NOTHING LEAVES THE ROOM

There is no server, no account and no sign-in. The phones talk to each other directly, and a hand exists only on the phones playing it. Bluetooth needs no network at all, which means a train, a power cut or a holiday house with no signal is still a table.

THE GAME, IN FULL

• A full pack of 52, thirteen cards each, and the ace high in every suit

• Spades are trumps from the first card — nothing to bid for, nothing hidden

• Each player calls the tricks they undertake to take: at least one, at most thirteen

• Nobody passes, and the calls need not add up to thirteen. Usually they do not, and that is the game

• Make your call and you score it, plus a tenth for every trick over

• Fall one short and you lose the whole call — which is why a careful player calls under what they count

• A game is five deals, and the highest score wins

THE TABLE DECIDES HOW IT PLAYS

Call Break is played a little differently in different rooms, so the rules that vary are settings rather than facts. Follow suit if you can, and head the trick if you can. Unable to follow, play a spade if you hold one, and beat any spade already there. All three are on by default, because that is what most tables play — and any of them can be turned off in the lobby before the first deal.

SHORT OF PLAYERS? SEAT A BOT

A bot is a player with no phone, and Call Break needs four, so this is what makes a game possible when only two of you are free. Seat one, two or three, and give each a memory dial from 0 to 100: the chance, each turn, that it works out from the cards already played what is left, rather than looking only at its own hand. A bot counts its hand and calls one under, takes tricks as cheaply as it can until it is home, and stops spending once it is.

BUILT FOR A REAL TABLE

• A code the host reads out, mixed into the handshake, so being in range is not the same as being invited

• A phone that drops out can come back and take its seat again

• Set the table on "Both" and a table that loses Wi-Fi carries on over Bluetooth without the game noticing

• Your hand, held full-screen, and a Hide button for when somebody leans over

• Every trick can be held up until all four have seen it, so nobody misses what was played

• A log of every call and every trick, in plain words

• Thirteen languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Urdu and Nepali; the cards stay left to right in Urdu

• Share a win: an "I won!" card with the final table, sent wherever you choose

• When a phone loses touch, the host chooses: wait for them, or drop them and play on

NO MONEY, EVER

Nothing to buy, nothing to cash out, no real-money play of any kind. The scores are scores. The game is free and shows ads, never on the table while a hand is being played.