We're frequently asked about compatibility with Android, and we understand why. Each player needs a device to play The Card Table and not everyone has an iPhone.

The unfortunate answer to the Android question is that we do not currently see a way to make The Card Table cross-platform. The reason is that we are using a new feature in iOS 7 called the Multipeer Connectivity framework, which creates and manages connections between devices over Bluetooth or Wifi.

It is possible to connect iOS and Android devices together over wifi, and there are a couple of third-party frameworks that handle those connections. However it is entirely impossible to connect an Android device to an iOS device over Bluetooth, due to Apple security restrictions.

So for now we are waiting for a way to make cross-platform Bluetooth and Wifi connections possible. We do not think cross-platform Wifi connection support is worth losing Bluetooth and losing the ability to leverage the iOS-only framework that does exactly what we need it to do to make The Card Table work.

Here is some reading for you about the Multipeer Connectivity framework and iOS-Android peer-to-peer compatibility.

• From BGR
  
• From Cult of Mac
• For techies

Fox 13 News ran a story Saturday evening about The Card Table. Many thanks to them for taking the time to speak with us and share our work with Utah.

We did it! Card Table took home the $2500 grand prize in the 2014 BYU Mobile App Competition. Thanks to everyone who downloaded helped spread the word in February. And congrats to our friends who made Sadie O'Green, Later, Pudgy Penguin, and Scrimp on jobs well-done.

We are now pleased to announce that Card Table v. 1.1 is now available on the App Store. This version represents our complete vision for Card Table. Version 1.0 was in many ways a proof-of-concept for us (and we were in a hurry to make the app available for the competition).

Version 1.1 includes features we knew were important from the get-go, but simply did not have time to implement. They are:

• Pinch to zoom. Many of you asked if there was a way to give yourselves more space on the iPad. Now you can zoom in and out on the card table to give yourself some more space.
  
• Manual sorting. You're now free to sort cards in your hand however you please.
  
• Scorekeeping. At the end of a round players will now be prompted on their phones to enter their score for the round. The iPad has a scorekeeping screen. You can enter or modify players' scores from the iPad too. It looks like this:
  

Lastly, back to the App Competition. We had downloads all over the world...

but downloads have petered out the last couple of weeks, as you can see here:

We think it is because with the initial release we had many downloads, and perhaps more importantly, many reviews over a short period of time (That's the initial spike--thank you, everyone!) All those downloads and reviews led to better placement in App Store rankings, and that sustained the 120-160 downloads per day that we saw for the final week. Whatever it was that spurred downloads, we are grateful for it. We feel blessed.

We expect to see downloads spike again soon. We plan to be featured on some well-read websites. We'll let you know when that happens.

Crazy Eights is one of the simplest multiplayer card games to master. It is usually our fallback when we are testing Card Table. It is easy to set up and easy to play. You may recognize Crazy Eights as Uno with face cards.

You start by dealing 5 to 7 cards to each player, and then flip over the top card of the remaining deck and place it next to the deck to start the discard pile. You will probably want to triple-tap on the Card Table on the iPad to create a play point before beginning your discard pile, and then place the first card on top of the play point. That way players can play cards from their hands directly to the discard pile. (This game is why we realized we should build the play point feature!)

The objective of the game is to discard all of the cards in your hand. Players may make one of the following moves on their turn:

Legal Moves

1. If the top card of the discard pile is not an eight, you may play any card which matches the rank or suit of the previous card (for example if the top card on the discard pile was the king of hearts you could play any king or any heart).
2. An eight may be played on any card, and the player of the eight must nominate a suit.
3. If an eight is on top of the pile, you must play either another eight or any card of the suit nominated by the person who played the eight.

Drawing Cards
If a player can make a legal play on their turn they must make it. If a player cannot make a legal play on their turn they must draw a card. Some allow the drawn card to be played immediately if it is a legal move. Some others allow for more than one card to be drawn, up to a fixed number. Yet others require you to keep drawing until you can make a legal play.

If during the course of the game the entire deck is drawn, you can proceed one of two ways. You can play without a deck, and players simply lose their turn when they cannot play a card. Or you can shuffle the discard pile (except for the top card, which is saved to begin the new discard pile), turn it over, and use it as the new deck. This option is super simple with Card Table. Move the top card of the discard pile to the side, hold a long press over the rest of the pile to combine them, hold one more long press on the combined pile, and select "Add to Main Deck." Voila!

How to Win & Scorekeeping
The first player to get rid of all of their cards wins the round. Scorekeeping can be done one of two ways. The simplest way is that winning a round counts as one point, and you play rounds until someone reaches a certain number of points.

A more complicated scorekeeping method is to have players accumulate points based on the cards remaining in their hands at the end of each round. There are two ways to do this, too. Players can simply earn one point per card remaining in their hand, or cards can have their own point values based on their rank. An eight is worth 50 points, face cards are worth 10, and spot cards are worth their face value (an ace is 1 point, a two is 2 points, and so on). The objective in either case is to have the fewest points at the end of the game.

Additional Gameplay Options
Change suit. Traditionally an eight can be played at any time and the player can nominate any suit. Some say that you can play an eight at any time but cannot nominate another suit - the next player must match the suit of the eight you played or play another eight. Others suggest that you can play an eight at any time, but can only nominate a different suit if the eight matches the rank or suit of the previous card.

Skip. Some play that when a queen (or some other designated rank) is played, the next player in the rotation misses a turn, and the turn passes to the following player.

Reverse direction. Some play that when an ace (or some other designated rank) is played, the direction of play reverses, becoming counter-clockwise if it had been clockwise, or vice versa.

Draw cards. Some play that when a two is played the next player must draw two cards. Another option is to have the next player draw two cards AND lose their turn. Yet another option is to have the next player either draw two cards or play another two (an eight cannot be played in this case). If several consecutive twos have been played the next player must either play another two or draw two cards for each two in the sequence. The penalty cards cannot be played in the same turn - after the penalty cards have been drawn, the turn passes to the following player, who can continue with any card of the same suit as the last two, or another two or an eight.

Thanks to Pagat.com for help with the rules.

Later this week we will post again when our big update is released. We've added a scorekeeping feature; added a new table skin; allowed players to sort cards in their hand however they please; introduced a table zoom feature to give you more space on the iPad; and then some! We hear you when you give us feedback, and we want to hear more from you.

Happy playing,
The Card Table team

We think you are going to love Card Table. We love it because it lets us use our favorite devices to play our favorite games with our favorite people. Once you send a card between your iPhone and iPad, you'll be hooked on the magic of Card Table (and you'll see why we call it "magic"). 

If you have any questions about gameplay, contact us via Twitter (@cardtableapp) or the contact form found here.

Have fun!

New gameplay rules
We began with the Free Play mode because it was the most straightforward and most closely emulated the way we use a deck of playing cards. But we see value in implementing a way to enforce popular game rules in Card Table. These rules would let players send cards to the table only when it is their turn, and they would limit or demand playing a certain number of cards, either face-up or face-down, per the rules of the game you are playing.

One of our favorite parts of our own game nights is teaching each other new games, so we are excited to release  popular card games as new game modes in Card Table. Stay tuned for these releases, and let us know which games you are most excited for via the survey at the end of this post.

Card skins
We had fun designing the Modern card deck, and we debated for a long time about which colors to use on the card faces. We decided to stick with classic black and red for version 1, but in the future we want to open that decision up to you! We'll release new skins and colors and we're open to suggestions.