Played with a standard deck of playing cards.
2-player rules:
One player takes all the red cards; the other black cards.
Jokers or the card box are laid to form the central tile of a 5x5 grid. Players each lay a card orthogonally adjacent to this central tile.
Then players take turns either:
- laying any card in an empty space orthogonally adjacent to an existing friendly card.
- laying any card on top of a friendly card (to increase defence).
- laying a card on top of an enemy card. This can only be done if the enemy card is orthogonally adjacent to a friendly card AND the card being laid is higher in rank than the existing card.
The winner is the one to occupy more spaces.
3 player game:
Players 1 and 2 take a suit each. Player 3 takes 2 suits, giving them stronger card to make up for being wedged in the middle.
4 player game:
Each player uses one suit.