Why We Built CardsALot
People used to play multiplayer card games for fun, community, friendship, and togetherness. That’s the whole point of them. The cards are just a prop. The game is the conversation that happens during each turn.
Then life does what life does. The kids grow up and move away. Your best friends take a job in another state. The family scatters across time zones, and the weekly card night quietly stops happening. Nobody decided to quit playing — the table just got too far apart.
Now here we are, playing card games alone on our phones.
What Went Wrong on the Way to the Phone
With most card and table games on a phone, you’re the only real person at the table. The rest of the chairs are filled with software you pretend is a person. It works. It’s also basically just solitaire. There’s no friendship or togetherness. You’re just killing time by yourself, pretending you aren’t alone.
If you do play a real multiplayer game with other people, you’re usually playing with strangers.
If you manage to coordinate a game with friends and family, there are a too many steps to get rolling. Everyone needs the same app or to find the same website. Everyone has to have their own account. By the time you’ve all fumbled through setup, the impulse to play cards has already passed, or it’s time to start making dinner or putting the kids to bed.
What We Wanted Instead
One rule, and everything else follows from it: the person who suggests the game is the only one who has to do anything.
That’s how it works with a physical deck. Somebody sits down and deals the cards. Everyone else just sits down and plays. You’ve never had to install something to play a real card game.
How We Fixed It
With CardsALot, only one person needs the app — the person who starts or hosts the game. They send an invite link to friends and family, and wait for everybody to pop in. Guests can join on any device, in a browser or the app. They just open the link and — boom — they’re playing together. No downloads. No waiting for everyone to log in. Accounts are optional.
Add a group chat or a FaceTime call and voilà — the kids who moved away, the friends who landed in another state, the cousins you only see at holidays — everyone’s back around the kitchen table, joking, laughing, and having a good time. Distance ended the card night. CardsALot brings it back.
Where We Are
STACKS is live and playable today. Hearts, Spades, and Cribbage are in the works. We’ll write about each one here as it lands.
Pull up a chair.