Jacks Are Wild!

Jacks Are Wild! is the most realistic version available for mobile devices of a classic strategy card and board game sometime also called Wild Jacks or Crazy Jacks. And its completely free!

The object of the game is to place counters on the board cells matching the cards in your hand to form sequences of five adjacent counters in any direction - horizontally, vertically or diagonally. See below and the in-game Help page for detailed instructions.

PLEASE NOTE BEFORE DOWNLOADING: This app only allows you to play against AI players not against your friends - sorry!

GAME FEATURES

* Play anywhere - no Internet access required.

* Accurate representation of the classic board game with higher resolution images of the cards and board than other versions.

* Detailed game play instructions are available by clicking the "How to Play" button on the Start Menu, Also prompts appear at the bottom of the screen as a reminder.

* The game user interface has been carefully optimised for ease of play on all sizes of screen. Its not necessary to read the value of the cards as the board cards matching a selected card are automatically highlighted and one-eyed and two-eyed Jacks are colour coded for ease of recognition.

* Challenging computer opponent - uses sophisticated AI algorithms to provide 3 levels of computer player skill. Level 1 is good for newcomers to the game, while level 3 will challenge the most experienced players.

Please note: the AI does not cheat in any way. It does not know what cards you are holding and the cards (including Jacks) are dealt completely randomly. However just like in the real game, sometimes a player will be dealt a better than average hand by chance, for example several Jacks. This luck will average out if you play many games. You can check the number of Jacks dealt to each player using the "Statistics" display option.

HOW TO PLAY SUMMARY:

The object is to place counters on the board to form lines of 5 counters horizontally, vertically or diagonally by matching board cells to cards in your hand. To win a game the player must form a specified number (1, 2 or 3) of lines before the computer opponent.

The board has 100 squares consisting of 96 playing card pictures plus 4 corner squares. Each card in a standard pack of playing cards is represented twice on the board, with the exception of the Jacks which have no matching squares (see later). The four corner squares are "wild cards". No counters can be played on them, but any set of four adjacent counters plus a corner square also counts as a line of five.

Each player is initially dealt seven cards from a double pack of 104 playing cards. The cards the player holds determine which board squares the player may play a counter on. At each turn the player plays a card from his hand, puts a counter on one of the matching squares on the board and receives a replacement card. Play alternates between human and computer players with each player trying to form his own lines of five adjacent counters (or four plus a corner square), while also trying to block lines that the other player is trying to form.

The Jack cards have special values in Jacks Are Wild!:

* Playing a "Two-eyed" Jack (Jack of Clubs or Diamonds) allows the player to place a counter on any unoccupied square on the board.

* Playing a "One-eyed" Jack (Jack of Hearts or Spades) allows the player to remove any one of the other player's counters, provided it does not already form part of a completed line of five. Note that when playing a one-eyed Jack, the player does not also play one of his own counters.