Cheat

Setup

• Two to eight players. Four to six is the easiest range, but the rules stay the same even with just two. Uses a standard 52-card deck with no jokers (you can add 0-2 jokers in the settings).
• Shuffle and deal out the whole deck. Any extra cards go to the players starting from the first dealer, one each. The dealer moves on one seat each new round.
• Play starts on Ace. After King, it wraps back around to Ace. Nobody can change this order.

How to play

• On your turn, call out the current rank and play one or more cards face down onto the pile. Suits do not matter.
• You may play cards that do not match what you called — that is the bluff. You choose how many to play, up to the table limit (the default is one card).
• Right after you play, anyone else may call "Cheat!" Only the first one to do so counts, even if two people call it at once.
• If nobody calls it — either the timer runs out or everyone else answers that they won't challenge — play passes to the next player, who calls out the next rank in order.
• When someone calls "Cheat!", only the cards from that last play get turned face up; anything played earlier stays hidden. Any one of them not matching the call means it was a lie.
• A lie means the player who played takes the whole pile into their hand. The truth means the challenger takes it instead. Those cards can be played again later.
• With jokers in play, a joker counts as whatever rank was called, so it always turns out to be "true".

Winning

• The first player to empty their hand wins — as long as their final play survives any challenge (a lie just means picking up the pile and playing on).
• Everyone else is ranked by how many cards they are holding when the game ends, fewest first. Ties share a place.
• A player who resigns folds their hand face down into the pile and takes the last place. Their turn is skipped from then on.

House rules