Last Card, Check Up!

How to play Last Card, Check Up!

Last Card, Check Up! is the classic Naija shape card game: quick to learn, loud to play, and won by whoever gets rid of their cards first. Here are the rules, start to finish.

The aim

Everyone starts with five cards. Be the first to play all of yours. When your last card goes down, that’s a check up, and you win.

The cards

Each card has a shape and a number. There are five shapes — circle, triangle, cross, square and star — plus the Wild 20, which belongs to no shape. One card is turned face up to start the game: that is the call card. The rest of the deck is the market.

On your turn

Play a card that matches the call card: the same shape, or the same number. Your card becomes the new call card.

Nothing to play? Draw a card from the market. Drawing ends your turn. You have 20 seconds a turn; if the time runs out, a card is drawn for you.

Special cards

1 — Hold On

Everyone else waits. You play again.

2 — Pick Two

The next player draws two cards, unless they play a 2 of their own, which passes four on to the player after them.

5 — Pick Three

The same idea with three cards: answer a 5 with a 5 and the next player draws six.

8 — Suspension

The next player misses a turn.

14 — General Market

Everyone else draws a card. You play again.

Wild 20

Goes on anything. You call the shape that must follow.

How it ends

Last card. When a player is down to one card, the whole table is told.

Check up. Play your last card and you win, even if it is a special card.

Tender. If the market runs dry, or the game reaches its time limit, hands are counted and the lowest total wins. Cards count their number, stars count double, and the Wild 20 counts 20. Equal lowest hands make it a draw.

Ways to play

Practice against one to seven computer players, with nothing to install and no account. Or go online: open a table, share the code or link with friends, and play together at tables of up to eight. With five or more players, two decks are shuffled together.

A game runs for 25 minutes unless you choose 40 minutes or no limit in Settings, where you can also change the look of the table and cards.