DeadEnd

DeadEnd is a single player, shareware, card game from southern Russia. In the real world, it may be played by two, three, or four players. In this version, it is played by one player against the computer.

This is a card capturing game. The object is to accumulate as many cards as possible during game-play by taking bribes. The player with the most cards at the end of the game wins.

The game is played with a standard deck of fifty-two cards. Play starts with each player receiving four cards and between them four cards are placed face up. Players take turns to play a card to capture a card from the central store and when all four cards in their hand have been used up they are dealt four more until the pack is exhausted.

Cards are captured by:

• Playing another card of the same rank, so a queen will capture a queen.
• Point count, an ace, a three, and a five add up to nine so playing a nine will capture all three.
• Playing a jack, a jack is considered the highest ranking card so it takes all exposed cards.

Other rules are that a player must play a card when it is their turn, if it is not possible to capture cards by taking a bribe then they must still play something. Additionally a player cannot take more than one bribe in succession.

Scoring

In each game, a maximum of five points can be scored. The two of clubs and ten of diamonds are the eponymous Dead Ends and the player holding these cards at the end of the game may claim one point for each.

Cards in the club suit have special significance and the player holding the most clubs at the end of the game can claim an extra point. The player with the most cards at the end of a game claims two points.

A match is over when a player achieves fifteen points.

There is a variation to the basic game in which the court cards have individual point counts and the jack loses its special status. In this game, the king has a value of thirteen, a queen counts as twelve, and a jack as eleven. Each may capture an opponent's cards that total their point value. A second version DeadEnd Variant B using this rule installs alongside the main game.

The game is played entirely with the mouse. There is no in game sound or music, nor are there any game configuration options. The help file is in English, Russian, and German, it opens in a browser window and cannot be accessed via the game.