Frequently asked questions Short answers first, details after

Yes. Open Mercy is a website, not an app, so there's nothing to install. Go to open-mercy.com, press PLAY NOW, and you're at the lobby a few seconds later.

It runs in modern desktop and mobile browsers, including the normal browser on iPhone and Android. If the page stays blank or the table never loads, update your browser first, then try a normal (non-private) window. Some privacy extensions block the connection to the game server. If it still won't load, tell us which device and browser you're using.

You can play everything as a guest. When you press PLAY NOW, the game quietly gives you an anonymous account: a random id and a made-up handle. That's all you need for bot games, the daily deal and online rooms with friends.

An account only matters if you want to keep your stats. Use CLAIM ACCOUNT in the lobby to attach an email to the guest you've been playing as, so your record follows you. The privacy page lists exactly what gets stored.

Press PLAY NOW, then choose Play vs bot in the lobby. You play one on one against a bot, and the first card is turned over for you.

There's no difficulty menu. Instead there's a ladder of eight bots, starting with Scrap and ending with Terminator. You always face the next one you haven't beaten, so the games get harder as you win. When you beat one, the next is unlocked.

For something different, try TODAY'S DEAL in the lobby. It's you against Terminator on Official rules, and everyone gets the same shuffle that day, so you can compare results with friends.

Create a private room and send your friends the link. Step by step:

1. Press CREATE GAME in the lobby and pick a stacking mode (OFFICIAL, HOUSE or CASUAL).
2. Use SHARE LINK or COPY LINK to send the invite link, or read out the six-character room code.
3. Friends open the link, or enter the code under Join with code.
4. Check that everyone you expect is listed in the room.
5. The host presses START GAME. The button shows how many players are in.

You need at least two connected players to start, and a room holds up to 20. Only the host can start a private room, so if the button isn't there for you, you're not the host. For the full walkthrough, see How to play.

Get rid of every card in your hand before anyone else does. You play one card per turn, matching the top of the discard pile by color, number or symbol, or playing a wild.

There's a second way to win. Any player who reaches 25 cards is knocked out, so if everyone else gets eliminated, the last one standing wins even with a full hand. That's what changes the strategy: in a big stacking war, staying under 25 matters more than racing to empty your hand. Each game is a single round. The strategy guide covers how to play around it.

Tap the deck and you draw until you get a card you can play. There's no separate draw button and no pass button. Tapping the deck is the only way to draw.

As soon as a playable card comes up, it's played for you automatically. If it's a wild, you pick a color first. For example, the top card is a green 5 and Jo holds only red and blue cards. Jo taps the deck, draws a blue 2, then a yellow Skip, then a green 8. The green 8 goes straight onto the pile, and Jo keeps the other two.

Things work differently when a Draw card is waiting for you. Then drawing means taking the whole stack, and your turn ends. See stacking below.

The moment a draw takes your hand to 25 cards or more, you're out. The check happens whenever you draw, whether that's a normal draw, a stack you took, or a Color Roulette.

Your whole hand goes onto the discard pile and the game carries on with everyone else. For example, Marcus holds 18 cards when a stack of 8 lands on him. He'd reach 26, so he's eliminated partway through the draw, and play moves on. If only one player is left, that player wins.

If you're knocked out of an online game, you can keep watching from the SPECTATING bar, or press LEAVE.

You have to press MERCY! before you get down to your last card, the same idea as calling the last card at the table. The button works once you're holding two cards or fewer.

Online, you can press it at any time, even when it isn't your turn. The safe habit: press MERCY! when you have two cards, then play. Drawing any card cancels your call, so if you draw again, you'll need to call again.

There are two ways to get caught out:

• You play your last card without calling. You don't win. You draw 2 cards and the turn passes.
• You sit on one card without calling. The other players get a button that says CAUGHT! with your name. Online they have 8 seconds to press it. If they do, you draw 10.

Against the computer, the bot doesn't always notice, but it catches you often enough that it's not worth the gamble.

A normal action card has a color and has to match. A wild has no color of its own and can be played on anything, apart from the one exception in the table.

Two things surprise people. First, Draw 4 is a colored card in this deck, so a red Draw 4 needs red or another Draw 4. Second, while a Draw stack is waiting for you, only Draw cards can be played, and that includes wilds. A plain Wild or a Color Roulette can't get you out of a stack. The card guide goes through every card.

Every other player is skipped and the turn comes straight back to you.

For example, Priya, Marcus and Jo are playing. Priya plays a blue Skip Everyone. Marcus and Jo both miss their turn, and it's Priya's turn again. She has to play a blue card or another Skip Everyone, or tap the deck and draw.

It's strongest as your second-to-last card. Play it, and your final card follows straight away before anyone can respond. Don't forget MERCY! first.

The player after you picks a color, then draws until a card of that color turns up. They keep everything they drew and lose their turn.

Yes, the victim picks the color, not the person who played the card. They'll see a ROULETTE TRAP DETECTED prompt. Wilds don't count as a match, so a wild card just goes into their hand and they keep drawing.

• Lucky: Sam plays Color Roulette on Jo. Jo picks green, and the first card is a green 4. Jo draws one card and the turn moves on.
• Unlucky: Jo picks green again and draws a blue 2, a Wild, a red Skip and then a green 9. That's four cards, all kept, and still a lost turn.

Drawing also stops if the victim hits 25 cards and is eliminated, or if the deck runs out. Color Roulette can't be played onto a Draw stack, and it doesn't add to one.

After you play a 7, a SWAP HANDS window opens. You pick another player and trade your whole hand for theirs.

You can only pick players who are still in the game. If you'd rather keep what you have, press KEEP MY HAND and the swap is skipped. For example, Marcus has 3 cards and Priya has 11. If Marcus plays a 7, he obviously keeps his hand. But if Priya plays one, she can hand her 11 cards to Marcus and take his 3.

A good rule: swap with whoever has the fewest cards, unless you can tell their hand is nearly all one color you can't use.

Every hand still in the game moves one seat along, in the current direction of play.

For example, four players are going clockwise: Priya, then Marcus, then Jo, then Sam. Jo plays a 0.

• Priya's hand goes to Marcus.
• Marcus's hand goes to Jo.
• Jo's hand goes to Sam.
• Sam's hand goes to Priya.

If someone has played a Reverse and play is running the other way, the hands move the other way too. Nobody gets to choose. It's the one card that can take your nearly-empty hand away from you.

Play it on a matching color, or on another Discard All, and every card of that color leaves your hand at once.

If more than one card is discarded, you choose which one ends up on top, and that card's effect happens as if you had just played it. For example, the top card is a blue 8. Sam holds a blue Discard All, a blue 3, a blue Draw 2 and a red 5. He plays the Discard All, and the blue 3 and blue Draw 2 go with it. He puts the Draw 2 on top, so Marcus now faces a 2-card stack. Sam is left holding just the red 5.

If Discard All empties your hand, you win on the spot, and you don't need a MERCY! call for it.

Yes. When a Draw card is played on you, you can add another Draw card and pass the growing total to the next player. Or you tap the deck, take the whole stack, and your turn ends.

For example, Priya plays a Draw 2. Marcus answers with a Draw 6, so the penalty is now 8. Jo has to play a Draw card that's allowed on a Draw 6, or take all 8. Which cards are allowed depends on the mode the room was set up with:

Wild Reverse Draw 4 counts as +4 and also reverses direction, so the stack heads back the way it came. With only two players, it just flips direction, and your opponent still has to take the draw. The stacking guide has worked examples and the edge cases.

It's almost always the code or the room's age. Go through the error you see:

• Room not found. The code was mistyped, or the room no longer exists. Empty private rooms are cleared after 6 hours, and empty public rooms after 10 minutes. Ask the host to send the invite link instead of the code, which rules out typos.
• Game is full (max 20 players). All 20 seats are taken. Wait for the next game, or have someone start a second room.
• It hangs or times out. Usually your connection. Switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data, refresh once, and open the link again.

If the host's own room has disappeared, they can press CREATE GAME and share the new link. It takes ten seconds.

Quick match puts you in an open public room with strangers, or opens a new public room if there isn't one to join.

Public rooms start on their own, so nobody has to be the host. The countdown starts at 60 seconds and gets 5 seconds shorter each time someone joins, but never drops below 10 seconds. It goes to 5 seconds once the room is full. If you'd like to wait for more players, WAIT LONGER adds a minute, once. If nobody else shows up, PLAY VS BOT INSTEAD takes you to a bot game.

The game tries to reconnect you on its own, and your seat is kept while it does.

It retries after about a second, then waits a little longer between each attempt, up to ten seconds. If it becomes your turn while you're gone, you get 20 seconds to come back. After that the server acts for you, in the most boring way it can: it takes the waiting stack, or draws one card. It never plays a card from your hand. There's no turn timer while you're connected, so you're never rushed in normal play.

Refresh the page once and rejoin with the same invite link. Your seat is still there.

Please don't keep tapping cards or the deck while it's stuck. Those taps can land all at once when the connection comes back. If the same thing keeps happening, write down what was on screen and report it. The mode, the number of players and what you tapped last are the most useful details.

Yes, in online rooms, and it's optional. Press JOIN VOICE to talk to the table. Nobody hears you until you do.

Your browser will ask for microphone permission the first time. If you said no by mistake, allow it in the site settings next to the address bar, then press JOIN VOICE again. The host also gets a Mute everyone button for when it gets loud. Voice isn't available in bot games.

Yes. You play by tapping: tap a card to play it, and tap the deck to draw. It works in the normal browser on iPhone and Android.

Big games are the tight spot on a small screen. With 20 players at the table, the other hands get small. If something is cut off or hard to tap on your phone, please tell us the model and browser, because that's the kind of problem we can only fix once we know about it.

Open an issue on GitHub, or use the feedback form inside the game. Both get read.

A bug report we can actually fix includes:

• Your device and browser, for example "Pixel 7, Chrome".
• The game mode: bot, daily deal, private room or Quick match, plus the stacking mode.
• How many players were in the game.
• What you did, what you expected, and what happened instead.
• A screenshot or screen recording, if you can take one without showing anything private.

Rule suggestions are welcome too. The three stacking modes exist because players disagreed about the rules. More on the contact page.