🚌 Ride the Bus

🕹️ How to play

1. How to start a game of Ride the Bus: Pick how many are playing (1–8, default 3) and tap Deal — player 1 gets the first card straight away. Names and house rules (aces high or low, edge cards, bus limit) are optional and live behind a small chip. Your phone is the dealer and the referee, so you don't need a deck.
2. The four calls: red or black, higher or lower, in-between or outside, suit: Each player calls four cards in a row. Card 1: red or black. Card 2: higher or lower than card 1. Card 3: in-between the first two ranks or outside them. Card 4: the suit. Every answer button shows its live odds, like "Lower ~55%", and the result plus the reason appears the moment the card flips.
3. How many drinks for a wrong call: By default a miss costs 1, 2, 3 or 4 for questions 1 to 4, and you play all four either way. Choose sips (any drink) or points as the unit. After your fourth card you see a one-line summary and pass the phone on.
4. Who rides the bus and how to get off: Once everyone has played, the player with the most penalties rides the bus; ties flip one card each and the lowest rank rides. The rider calls the same four questions again — one miss is a crash (+1) and the trip restarts from card 1. Four right in a row gets you off. Hit the bus limit (5 crashes by default) and the driver lets you off anyway.
5. Solo mode and playing again: Set players to 1 for a solo ride: you go straight onto the bus and try to get off with as few crashes as possible; your best is saved in this browser only. In a group game, Play again keeps the same players and rules and keeps a running session total.

📖 Rules & variants

Basic rules: one 52-card deck, no jokers. Each player calls four cards in a fixed order — red/black, higher/lower, in-between/outside, suit. No card repeats within a set of four; if fewer than four cards remain, a fresh deck is shuffled in and you're told so. Every call is judged the instant you tap, and refreshing the page never re-deals a card.

How each call is judged: card 1 by colour (hearts and diamonds are red). Card 2 must be strictly higher or lower than card 1 — the same rank loses both ways. Card 3 is inside if it falls strictly between the first two ranks and outside if it is below both or above both; matching either rank (an edge card) counts as outside by default. Card 4 wins on the same suit. Aces are high by default (A beats K); you can switch to aces low.

Edge cases: if the first two cards share a rank (two 7s), inside can never win — the button shows ~0% and outside ~100%. The edge house rule can make edge cards lose both ways instead. Zero-percent options can still be tapped; they are judged wrong with the reason "that side can't win".

How the odds are worked out: only from what you can see — 52 minus the cards already flipped in this set — count the cards that would make an option right, divide by the cards left. With the 9 of hearts showing, lower is 2–8, 28 cards out of 51 (≈55%), higher is 10–A, 20 out of 51 (≈39%), and the three other 9s lose both ways. You can hide the odds in house rules.

Riding the bus and the trip limit: every trip starts again at card 1. A miss is a crash worth 1 (bus penalties never ramp up), that trip is void, and the next one uses fresh cards. Four right in a row and you're off. The limit is short 3, standard 5 or long 8 crashes — reach it and the driver lets you off, so the bus can never cost more than the limit.

Strategy: on higher or lower, bet away from the first card; on in-between or outside, only go inside when the first two ranks are 7 or more apart; on the suit, pick the suit you've seen least. That's exactly what the odds on the buttons show. Even playing every call perfectly, four in a row only happens about 7% of the time, so the driver letting you off is more common than escaping.

House rule variants: aces high / low; edge card outside / wrong; round penalties 1-2-3-4 / 1 each; sips / points; bus limit 3 / 5 / 8; odds on / off. Rules lock once the game starts and show as read-only. The classic pyramid stage that picks the rider is not played here — the most penalties rides instead.

❓ FAQ