Play the card game War online, free

How this War works

A standard deck is split between you and the computer. Both flip the top card and the higher card, ace high, takes both. If the cards tie, you go to war: each player puts down three cards face down and one face up, and the higher face-up card takes the whole stack. Wars can chain. The game ends when one player holds every card.

Tap Flip or press Space for each round, turn on auto-play to watch a game finish on its own, or use fast mode to skip the animation. A stats panel tracks the cards each player holds, the wars won and the longest war. Won cards go to the bottom of the winner's pile in a shuffled order, and after 5,000 flips the player with more cards wins, so the game always ends.

Is there any strategy?

No. Once the deck is split, every flip is decided by chance, and the whole game is determined by the order of the cards. That makes War a good first game for young children, and a soothing one for adults who want to switch their brain off. If you want a card game where choices matter, try Hearts or Gin Rummy.

Why games can last so long

Since each flip is a coin toss weighted only by the cards, a game can swing back and forth for hundreds of rounds. In theory, a real game with a fixed order of returned cards could go on forever, which is why we shuffle the won cards and cap the game. You'll see long wars on the stats panel: three cards face down, one up, and sometimes another round on top of that.

Quick facts from the stats panel

The stats panel is there to give a pointless game some drama. Watch the cards each player holds swing back and forth, count the wars you've won and see how long the longest war stretched. Most games drag, a few finish quickly, and every so often a chain of wars hands one player a huge lead in a single flip. Try fast mode and auto-play together if you simply want to see how a game ends.

Built from a prompt

The brief for this game is on its page.