Şeşgoşe

How a turn works

Say who the next hexagon is for — yourself or anybody else at the table — and only then turn one over. You have not seen the card when you choose, which is what makes it a bet rather than a sum.

Plus Minus

Hexagons hold numbers from −5 to +5 and your score is their sum. A card landing where its new owner already owns two touching hexagons counts double. The deck adds up to exactly zero, so taking every card means taking every minus with it: the game is knowing when the rest of the deck is on your side.

Harvest

Sixteen farm cards — sheep, hay, wolves, weeds — stay on your farm, which is scored at four harvests, so an early cow is worth four cows. Between rounds anyone may trade one card for one card. A wolf takes your best animal unless a dog or a fence stops it, and a goat eats the weeds.

Patches

Three colours and a scatter of rocks. Your biggest patch of each colour scores its size squared, and rocks cost the square of how many you hold, so the third rock is five points against you. Knowing when to stop taking is the whole theme.

Who can play

Two to eight people. Play on one screen, against the computer, or open a room and send the four-letter code; in a room you can turn a camera and microphone on, and the video goes browser to browser rather than through this site. It is free, there is no account, and nothing is installed.