Hearts is trick-taking free game usually played by 4 players. Hearts has similar rules to Whist, Bridge and Spades trick taking games, but the game is unique among these games because you need to avoid taking penalty cards (like any hearts and the queen of spades).
** Hearts game features: **
* Play online in multiplayer mode or with AI in single player mode
* Change background color
* Change gameplay settings (number of players, difficulty, speed, some game variations like Queens, Shooting the moon, Breaking hearts, etc)
* Statistics (games played, games won, and more)
* Chat (when playing in multiplayer mode)
This Hearts game can be played by 3 or 4 players in single player and multiplayer mode with friends and family.
When the game is played in 3 players, the 2 of diamonds is removed from deck and each player receives 17 cards.
When the game is played in 4 players, each player receives 13 cards.
** Cards passing: **
Before each hand begins, players can change cards that they do not want between them. Number of cards they can change can be changed to 3, 2, 1 or 0 to disable this rule. In first round, your cards will go to player on your left, second round, your cards will go to player on the right, third round, across (if there are 4 players).
** Gameplay: **
Hearts game is played like the most of the other trick taking game. Players must follow suit if possible, if not, they can play any card. The first trick is lead by the player who holds the 2 of clubs.
** Penalty cards: **
Queen - 13 penalty points
Any card of hearts - 1 point
** Goal of this card game: **
Goal of the game is to avoid taking penalty cards.
The winning player is the one with the fewest penalty points.
When you discard all of your cards, the round is over, but not the game. The game ends when a player reaches the target points, you set before game, and the winner is the one with the fewest points.
** Other Hearts variations and options: **
You can change:
- number of points needed in order to end a game
- number of players 3/4
- number of cards to pass before each hand
- difficulty normal/hard
- Shooting the moon variation - if you take all the penalty points, your have to options:
- New moon - player substracts number of all penalty points (usually 26) from his score
- Old moon - players score remains unchanged and the other players adds to their score the number of all penalty points
- Queens variation - all queens are penalty cards and they have 13 penalty points
- Breaking hearts variation - Hearts can not be lead in the first trick unless someone "broke" them before. When a player discard a heart on the lead of another suit its called "Breaking the hearts".
If you love card games from Whists family, this is a must play for you.