Putting my family's card game on the internet

Konker is an Ethiopian rummy-style card game. If you grew up around it you already know the noise it makes: two decks on the table, someone insisting the rules are different in their house, and one person who always calls a challenge at the worst possible moment. I wanted that online for friends and family who are no longer in the same country.

The shape of the game

Two full decks plus four jokers, 108 cards. The dealer takes fourteen and opens by dropping one, everyone else takes thirteen. On your turn you draw or take the latest drop, then drop one. You reveal sets and runs, and 41 points opens you.

The wrinkle that makes it Konker rather than rummy is the called card. Before each deal the host calls a rank and a colour. The four physical cards of that rank and colour become wild, and the printed jokers get demoted to restricted substitutes that can only stand in for a called card. Every valid group still needs at least one natural card in it. It is a lovely mechanic, and it means the value of your hand changes completely between rounds.

The actual hard part

I assumed the difficulty would be real-time multiplayer. It was not. Firebase Realtime Database handles six players on a table without much drama.

The hard part was deciding how much of the rulebook the table should enforce. Every family plays a slightly different Konker, and my first version happily blocked illegal moves. It was correct and it felt awful. Half the game is watching someone do something dubious and deciding whether to say anything.

The table is not a referee.

So no play is ever blocked. Take the drop before you have opened, lay off early, reveal a loose pair or outright junk. All allowed. All punishable. The app shows soft hints and, importantly, it remembers.

Enforcement moved to where it belongs, a Check. Anyone can challenge the last player who acted, and anyone can check a win on the winner banner. From the public state of the table it catches groups that are not real sets or runs, a pair outside a Konker win, all-wild groups, and taking the drop without having opened 41. The rules are still absolute, but a human has to invoke them, which is exactly how it works around a real table.

Small mercies

A couple of house rules made it in because they solve real arguments. Winning is automatic on the drop, so you go out by dropping your last card with an empty hand, which removes any debate about when the round actually ended. Revealed cards can be pulled back into your hand while it is still your turn and lock the moment you discard, the built-in net for miscounting your 41.

It plays in English and Amharic, there is a bot if you are short a player, and it is live at konker-table.web.app. Teaching a computer a game your family never wrote down is a strange kind of documentation project, and I recommend it.