Manu Arcade · With a friend

Play a friend

50 classic games that seat a friend in one minute: chess to cribbage, checkers to liar’s dice. Make a table, send the four-letter code, and play — free, in the browser, with no accounts on either side.

Friendly tables are never rated · the ladder sleeps while friends play The Tables → The whole Arcade →
— One minute, start to seated —

How it works

I

Pick the game

Any game below. The link opens it with the private-table pane already standing, so there is nothing to hunt for.

II

Light the table

The house deals you a four-letter code and a link that carries it. Send either however you like: a text, a group chat, a note under the door.

III

They sit down

Your friend taps the link (or types the code) and takes the chair. No accounts on either side, nothing to install, and the table is theirs and yours alone.

Rather test your mettle against strangers? The same games run rated quick-match at the Tables. Friendly tables stay off that ladder entirely.

— A move a day —

Not online at the same hour?

24 of these games also play by correspondence.

A slow table gives each move a day and the gathering a week: light one from the game’s live-table mode, hand over the same code, and play a move whenever you pass by. Your standing tables wait under the same button, and games marked ☾ slow below all keep this pace. Miss a day and the house winds the clock once for you; the second lapse concedes the board.

— Pick your battlefield —

The games

Every link opens the game with the private pane standing.

The boards Chess to hnefatafl: perfect information, no luck to blame.

Reversi Flip the field, sun and moon. · ☾ slow Draughts Forced jumps, crowned kings. · ☾ slow Chess The royal game, against the Bishop. · ☾ slow Backgammon The oldest race in the world. · ☾ slow Mancala Sow, reap, count the granaries. · ☾ slow Dots and Boxes Fence fields. Mind the double-cross. · ☾ slow Battleship Call your shots into the fog. · ☾ slow Nine Men's Morris Close the mill. Take his man. · ☾ slow Go Wall the empty ground. · ☾ slow Xiangqi Cross the river. Run down the general. · ☾ slow Dominoes Set the bones. Knock when you must. Four in a Row Drop. Stack. Read three moves past him. · ☾ slow Hex Join your sides. Sever theirs. · ☾ slow Halma Corner to corner, leap by leap. · ☾ slow Sternhalma Point to point across the star. · ☾ slow Hnefatafl Sixteen against nine. Run for the corners. · ☾ slow Breakthrough Ever forward. First through wins. · ☾ slow Alquerque The old web gives, and it takes. · ☾ slow Fox and Geese One hunts. Seventeen herd. · ☾ slow Lines of Action Move as the line is full. Gather into one. · ☾ slow Amazons Glide like a queen. Loose the arrow. · ☾ slow

The card room Two-hand duels and four-chair partnerships; empty chairs fill from the house cast.

Hearts Pass three, duck the queen, keep low. Gin Rummy Knock light. She remembers. Spades Bid your tricks. Keep your word. Pinochle Bid the count. Name the trump. Piquet The exchange, then the reckoning. Crazy Eights Follow the suit or the rank. Eights answer everything. Cribbage Feed the crib. Peg the count. The show decides. Whist Follow suit. Trust your partner. Go Fish Every ask is a confession. Remember them all. Euchre Three tricks make the point. The bowers make the law. Oh Hell Bid it exactly. Or take nothing. Briscola No duty to follow. Sixty-one takes it. Scopa Fish by value. Sweep for the point. Casino Take it, or build it and dare them. Rummy Meld, lay off, go out. The pile remembers. Durak Beat it or take it. Never be left holding. Canasta Meld deep. Freeze the pile. Skat One against two. Sixty-one takes it.

The dice cups Quick, loud, and mercifully short between friends.

Liar's Dice Bid high. Call the lie. Yacht Three rolls. Twelve lines. No mercy in the arithmetic. Pig Roll or hold. The one is always waiting. Farkle Press your luck. Dread the farkle. Shut the Box Shut what sums. Pray for the clean board. Ludo Four tokens, one road, no mercy.

The word duels Ghost and the gallows: vocabulary as a contact sport.

Ghost Add a letter. Never finish the word. · ☾ slow Hangman Duel You set for me, I set for you. · ☾ slow

The deduction duels Sealed codes and honest reasoning.

Bulls and Cows Seal yours. Crack theirs first. · ☾ slow

The quiz chairs The almanac asks; the fastest right answer takes the branch.

Disputation Twelve assertions, two chairs, one truth apiece. · ☾ slow Quiz Night Six seals. Four chairs. One book.

Anonymous by design: pick a name once and the table remembers it — no account, no email, nothing to reset. Short a friend at this hour? The parlour keeps a party-finder · join the Discord

The Tables · rated play → The whole Arcade · 117 games → Today at the Arcade → Every game, A to Z →