Palace

JoshsGames.com

Contains ads

About this game

Palace was the most popular study hall / cafeteria card game in my high school growing up in the 90's. According to Wikipedia it's also popular amongst backpackers, and as a result is widespread.

** Added new options per user requests (pickup pile any time and 7 forces lower).
** Added ability to play against friends

Play against eight different computer characters, each with slightly different playing styles or play live against your friends.

Basic Rules:

Each player is dealt 3 'face down cards'. You are not allowed to see or change these until the end of the game. Next, 3 'face up cards' are placed on top. Finally, each player is dealt 3 cards to form their hand. If you wish, you can switch cards from your 'hand' with your 'face up cards'.";

Whoever has a 3 or the next lowest card starts the game.

Each turn you must discard a card (or two or more cards of the same) greater than or equal to the one at the top of the pick up pile, then draw cards from the deck so you have at least 3 cards in your hand (unless the deck has run out of cards or you already have 3 or more cards in you hand).

2's and 10's are wild cards. 2's resets the pile and 10's clear the pile. 4 of a kind, like a 10, clears the pile.

If don't have a card that is greater than or equal to the card on top of the pile or a wild card, you must pick up the entire pile.

When there are no more cards in your hand, and the deck is empty, proceed to play your face up cards. Once all of the face up cards have been played, play the face down cards.

If you are the first to get rid of all your cards you win.

Palace is sometimes also known as Shed, Karma or "OG"

Ratings and reviews

I haven't noticed in glitches or crashes. The graphics are low quality. When you pick have to pick up the pile you cannot see all the cards in your hand unless you rotate the screen and then the cards are difficult to select because they are so close together. Only the 2 and the 10 are special cards. I had learned to play differently but sometimes keeping things simple is nice. Even with the minor issues I have mentioned, I plan on keeping this game until I find something better. Unless of course the developers decide to put a little more effort into this one, then I would stop looking for a replacement.

I have been playing palace with friends for a long time and we love it. Even taught my parents and grandparents to play. This mobile version is very basic but it has all the rules I've played by and works smoothly. It's perfect for a quick game whenever there's some down time. No complaints other than wishing there was an option to pay for no ads. I have yet to try and play with a friend using the "friend code" but will update my review afterwards.

I used to play this game in college. I was happy to see someone made an app so I can play again! I do wish that it doesn't auto rotate the screen. Sometimes I play laying down. It can be annoying to hold the phone a certain way so it doesn't change the screen view. Another annoying thing is when you get so many cards so it's hard to choose specific cards.