Tranca Offline: Card Game

Tranca is Brazil's closed-pile canasta game, and this one plays offline, with cards big enough to read at arm's length.

Two decks, 104 cards, no jokers — the only wild card is the 2. Build sequences in one suit and trincas (three or more cards of the same rank), finish your canastras, take the morto, and bater (go out) before the other side does.

HOW A ROUND GOES

Eleven cards in hand and two mortos — spare hands, face down — waiting on the table. The discard pile is closed: only the top card shows. To take the pile you have to use that top card straight away, in a new sequence, in a trinca, or on a meld already on the table. No use for it, no pile.

Discard a black 3 and the pile is locked while it sits on top. Cover it and the pile opens again — and whoever takes it gets the 3 as well. Red 3s never stay in your hand: they go straight to the table and count 100 for a team that makes a canastra, or 100 against a team that makes none.

THE SCORE

Canastra limpa (no wild) 200, canastra suja (one wild) 100, bater 100, a morto you never took minus 100. And going out is not simply emptying your hand: your side must already have taken its morto and hold at least one clean canastra. Every line of the total is shown separately.

BIG CARDS

Ranks and suits are drawn large and high-contrast, and Settings will make the cards and the text larger still. Nothing on screen is smaller than it needs to be.

NO INTERNET, NO ACCOUNT

The whole match runs on your phone. No sign-up, no login, no e-mail, no waiting on a server. On a plane, on the subway, in a waiting room, anywhere with no signal at all.

THE AI PLAYS FAIR

Three difficulty levels that change how well the opponent plays, never what it is dealt. The AI sees exactly what you see: the top of the discard pile, everything melded on the table, and how many cards each player holds. That is not a marketing promise — the code is split so that the AI has no route to anyone's hand. If you want to check, the fair-play screen shows the seed the deal came from, and the move log lists the round play by play.

WEEKLY AND MONTHLY RANKINGS

A nickname is all you give. No login, no password, no e-mail.

STUCK? ASK FOR A HINT

A hint picks a legal play for the hand you are holding. Every match starts with a few, and you can watch a video to top them up.

YOUR RULES

Two against two, or one against one. Play to 1500, 3000 or 5000 points. Two card-value systems. Ten interface languages. And an optional reminder at a time you choose.

Ads appear between rounds — never in the middle of a hand.

If you already play canasta, buraco or burraco, the table will look familiar; the trincas, the closed pile and the two kinds of 3 are what make it Tranca. If you have never played, the game teaches you.