peer2peergames

Racing Demon

Racing Demon is a patience you play against other people instead of against the pack, and everybody plays at the same time. There are no turns and nothing waits for you. Each of you deals your own pack into the same layout, and in the middle of the table there are foundation piles that all of you build on: an ace starts one, and anybody may play the next card of that suit onto it. The race is to empty your demon pile, the stack of thirteen beside your work piles. Whoever gets there first may call, and calling ends the game for everybody.

Play Racing Demon Leaderboard

What you are each dealt

  1. Two to four players, and every one of you has your own full pack of fifty-two cards. That is not a detail: it is what lets the cards in the middle be sorted out afterwards and scored to the person who played them.
  2. Thirteen cards go face down in a pile beside you with the thirteenth turned face up on top. That is your demon pile, and emptying it is the whole object of the round.
  3. Four cards go face up in a row next to it, one each to four work piles.
  4. The remaining thirty-five stay face down in your hand as your stock. You turn them three at a time onto a face-up waste pile.
  5. So a card is in one of five places: your demon pile, one of your four work piles, your stock, your waste, or the centre. Only the centre is shared.

The centre, which belongs to everybody

  1. A pile in the centre is begun only with an ace, and any of you may start one at any moment from a card you can reach.
  2. A pile builds up in its own suit, ace to king. When the king goes on, that pile is finished and set aside.
  3. Anybody may play onto anybody's pile. There is no ownership and no waiting: if you hold the card a pile wants, it is yours to play.
  4. Because there are four suits and a pack each, four players can have as many as sixteen piles open at once.
  5. Two of you will sometimes go for the same pile at the same moment. The first card played stays, and the other comes straight back to where it was. You lose nothing but the moment.

What you may play, and from where

  1. Three cards are available to you at any time: the face-up top of your demon pile, the top of your waste, and the lowest card of each work pile, which is the one nearest you with nothing covering it.
  2. Any of those may go to the centre if a pile there wants it.
  3. Your work piles build downwards in alternating colour: a red six goes on a black seven. You may move a card from one work pile to another if it fits, and anything sitting on top of it travels with it as a block.
  4. The top of your demon pile and the top of your waste may also be played onto a work pile that fits, not only into an empty space. That is the commonest move in the game.
  5. A space left by an emptied work pile may be filled from your demon pile, your waste, or another work pile.
  6. A card one rank higher and the opposite colour may be slid underneath a work pile instead, which is how you grow a pile without needing a space first.
  7. You are never obliged to play anything. A card you can play is not a card you must play.

The stock and the waste

  1. Turn three cards at a time from your stock onto your waste, keeping them in the same order, so the third one ends up on top.
  2. If only one or two are left, those go over and that is that.
  3. When the stock is empty, turn the whole waste over to become your new stock. You do not pick the waste up and go underneath it, so the order comes round again unchanged.
  4. If nobody at the table can move at all, everybody turns one card from the top of their stock to the bottom, which breaks the cycle and the play goes on.

Calling, and how the game ends

  1. The moment your demon pile is empty you may call, and the game ends for everybody the instant you do.
  2. You do not have to call straight away. With an empty demon pile you are safe from the penalty, so you can keep sending cards to the centre and keep earning while everybody else is still racing. Calling is the one judgement in this game, and knowing when to hold off is most of the skill.
  3. Once somebody has called, no further play is allowed at all, by anybody, including the caller.
  4. The game also ends if the table stalls: when nobody can move, everybody turns a card from the top of their stock to the bottom, and if the whole cycle comes round again with no card played in between, the deal is over and scores as it stands.
  5. There is no clock on the deal while anybody is getting anywhere: the game does not end because you were slow. What does end it is three minutes in which nobody at all has sent a card to the centre, which means the table is only shuffling and the deal is going nowhere.
  6. Every seat is live the whole time, so the site's move deadline of five minutes is only a dead man's switch: if nothing at all happens for that long the match is abandoned and nobody is rated.
  7. After the readies are in there is a three second countdown, and then everybody starts at once.

The score

  1. Count the cards in the centre that came from your own pack: one point each.
  2. Then subtract two points for every card still in your demon pile. Everybody pays that except the player who called, who pays nothing.
  3. So a deal you lose badly can easily be a negative score, and that is the point of the penalty: a demon pile you never got into is worse than no cards played at all.
  4. ONE DEAL DECIDES THE MATCH. The highest score takes it, which at two seats is almost always whoever called, because calling costs you the penalty everybody else pays.
  5. A resignation or a missed deadline ends the game against that player.

Worth knowing before you start

  1. Play your demon pile first, always. A point in the centre is worth one and a card left in the demon pile costs two, so a card off the demon pile is worth three to you compared with the same card from anywhere else.
  2. Do not tidy your work piles for the sake of it. Every second spent making the layout pretty is a second somebody else is spending on the centre.
  3. Watch what the centre wants. If two piles are sitting on sixes and you are holding a seven, play it before you turn your stock: somebody else is holding one too.
  4. An ace is never worth saving. Starting a pile gives everybody a place to play, but it also gives you one, and the card it is sitting on is usually yours to follow.
  5. If you cannot find a move, turn your stock rather than stare at it. Three new cards is three new chances and it costs nothing.

Every pack is dealt from the game's seed, which is published when the game ends, so any deal can be checked afterwards. Nothing here is played for money, and the site takes none.

Racing Demon terms

the demon pile
your stack of thirteen, twelve face down and one face up; emptying it is the object and every card left in it costs you two
a work pile
one of your four columns, built down in alternating colour; the exposed card is the lowest one, nearest you
the stock
the thirty-five cards you hold face down and turn three at a time
the waste
the face-up pile your stock is turned onto; only its top card is available
the centre
the shared foundations, begun with aces and built up by suit; anybody may play onto any of them
to call
to end the game, which you may do once your demon pile is empty, and need not do at once
an available card
the top of your demon pile, the top of your waste, or the exposed card of a work pile

Playing it here

  • Against a person or the bot. The bot needs no account and starts at once. To play a person, be rated and keep your games, you need an account: an email address and a password.
  • At your own pace. Every move has a deadline you both see, from one minute to a week. A game can take an evening or it can take a fortnight.
  • Nothing to buy and nothing to win. No stakes, no prizes, no boosts, no undo. The only thing on offer is a place on a leaderboard, and only if you want one.
  • Every game can be checked. Anything decided by chance comes from the game's seed, and the seed is published the moment the game ends, so any finished game can be replayed and verified by anyone. See fair play.