How the app works

Creating the table and calling your friends

• On the first screen you type a nickname, pick the variant and tap Create table. The table exists right away, and you are already sitting at it.
• Every table gets a five-letter code — K7PXA, for instance — and a link that ends in that code.
• Inside the table there is a field with the link and a Copy link button. On a phone you also get Share, which opens WhatsApp directly.
• Whoever gets the link taps it, types a nickname and sits down. No account to create, nothing to install, nothing to read first.
• If you would rather type, use the Join with a code field on the first screen: it is the same five letters.
• Pasting the link into a WhatsApp group is how this game travels. That is why the path of an invited guest is the shortest one here.

An empty seat becomes a Duck

• The table has four seats, and the match starts whenever the person who created it wants: from one to four people.
• Every seat still empty when the match starts becomes a Duck. Nobody waits around for a fourth player to show up.
• The Ducks have names of their own: Marreco, Bicudo, Quaquá, Tico, Zuza, Nina, Dodô and Guto. That name is what shows on the seat, on the scoreboard and in the announcements.
• And they have levels: Tame Duck, Sly Duck and Old Duck. The level shows next to the name at the table — Marreco · Sly.
• The person who created the table picks the level of each empty seat, in the selector beside it, before starting.
• A Duck only sees the cards of its own seat, exactly like you. When it bluffs, the bluff is real.
• When you create the table there is an option: Ducks never call truco. With it on they still answer a truco — they just never start one.

Who plays with whom

• Truco is two against two. You and your partner against the other pair; the point belongs to the pair, never to one person.
• On screen you are always at the bottom and your partner is always across from you, at the top. The two opponents sit on the sides.
• That is why the scoreboard says Us and Them instead of four names. Your pair's seats and the other pair's seats have different colours.
• Before starting, whoever created the table can Shuffle teams or Swap seats — in that mode, tap two seats to trade them.

The buttons at the table

• Your cards sit fanned out at the bottom. Tapping a card plays it — and a button only lights up when it means something right then; outside your turn it stays on screen, dimmed, so nothing jumps around.
• Plays the chosen card face up. When the table allows a face-down card, the first tap picks the card and opens the options Play, Play face-down and Cancel.
• Plays it face down: it loses to any card, but nobody finds out what it was. Only from the second round on, and only if the table has that rule on.
• Raises the bet, on your turn, before you play. The button's name follows the value: after this come Six!, Nine! and Twelve!.
• Takes the bet. The hand is now worth that much for both sides.
• Gives the hand up. The other pair takes whatever the hand was worth before the raise.
• Instead of taking it or folding, raises it back higher. Then it is the other side's turn to answer.
• In the hand of 11 the buttons become Play and Fold, and the decision belongs to the whole pair — you see each other's cards first.
• At the top of the table sit the scoreboard, the turned card with the hand's trumps, and two switches: sound and shake. Both apply to the whole site and are remembered.
• At the bottom is the chat, which shrinks to a single line whenever you want the whole screen for the table.

The clock on every play

• Whoever has the turn gets a ring that empties beside their Duck. That is the time left to act.
• It is about 20 seconds to play a card and 15 to answer a truco. Nobody is stuck waiting for someone who walked off to take a phone call.
• With five seconds to go the sound turns insistent — if sound is on for you.
• If time runs out, the Duck plays that turn for you. If it runs out twice in a row, the Duck takes the seat and keeps playing.
• To take it back, tap the button that appears on your seat. Any action of yours already counts as a touch and returns control.

The Teacher Duck's tip

• During the game, the Duck can write on screen which card to play and why — something like “lead with the 7 of hearts: it is your highest card that is not a manilha”, or “this hand does not pay the bet: run”.
• It does not talk all the time: only when it has an honest reason, which is a little over two turns in five. When it talks, the Duck in your seat blinks — blinking and having a tip are the same thing.
• Whoever creates the table chooses whether tips count, under Game options, and the choice belongs to the whole TABLE: either it counts for everyone, or for nobody. One person getting the best play without the others knowing would be cheating with the house helping.
• The default is “only when I play alone against three Ducks” — that is, at a table with friends tips start off. That is why you can play several games with your group and never see one. To have them with friends, pick “Always, for everyone” when creating the table.
• The agreement is written before you sit and inside the table, on the badge right under the code: it says what was agreed and whether it counts right now.

The chat has nowhere to type

• There is no text field in this game. Nowhere. That is a decision, not something left undone: with no free text there is no insult to moderate and no stranger writing whatever they like to your friends.
• What you can send are six stickers — the Duck angry, sad, scared, confident, celebrating and puzzled.
• And twelve ready-made lines, which everyone reads in their own language: Truco!, Run, duck!, Scared?, Nice one, partner!, I've got the zap! and a few more.
• Your nickname is the only text of yours that shows at the table, and it is 20 characters at most.
• The sticker strip shrinks to one line and gives the space back to the table. The choice is remembered for the next matches.
• If the table was created with Signals off, the chat closes during the hand and opens again between hands — arranging cards through stickers counts as cheating at many tables.

If the internet drops mid-match

• A strip appears saying the connection dropped and that the Duck is holding your seat.
• The Duck plays for you meanwhile. The match does not freeze: the other three are still at the table and the hand has to move.
• Reconnecting happens on its own — the site keeps trying, waiting a little longer each time. When the network is back, the seat is yours again with nothing for you to do.
• Reloading the page does not lose the seat either: while the tab is open, the site knows how to get back to your place.
• Closing the tab does forget it. To come back, open the same link again and sit down.
• Before the game starts it works differently, and that is the case when you leave the app to send the link on WhatsApp: your seat is held for 2 minutes. Come back within that time and it is still yours; take longer and it is released, and you sit again through the same link.

Course, shop and account

• The course is nine lessons that teach real truco — the cards, the trumps, when to bluff — by playing set-up hands against the Duck. This page is about the app; the course is about the game.
• The shop has clothes for your Duck: hats, scarves, waistcoats and feather colours. It is decoration, and only that. None of it changes a card or the outcome of a hand.
• The account keeps what is yours: your progress in the course, the history of your matches, and the clothes you own.
• You can play with no account at all, and that is how almost everyone starts. It is there so you do not lose what you have done when you change devices.

What about the rules of truco?

They live on another page, on purpose: this one is about the app, that one is about the game. If you have never played truco, start there — or with the course, which teaches by playing.

See the rules of truco · Go to the course