How to play King's Cup

Also called Ring of Fire · Circle of Death · Kings · Waterfall
2–16 players

One deck goes face down and everybody takes a card in turn. The rank is the rule: an ace is a waterfall, a four sends everyone to the floor, a jack lets you make up a rule that holds until the next jack. PlayWeya deals the cards, says what each one means and keeps the three things a room cannot - your mate, the Question Master, and the cup.

Every King pours a little more into the cup, and whoever draws the last one drinks it. That ends the round. Everything else happens out loud, between the people in the room - nobody types anything, so it plays the same on one phone passed round a table as it does on six.

Play King's Cup free

How to play

One deck, face down, and everybody takes a card in turn. What the card is worth is what the rank says, and the app draws the card and the rule together so nobody has to remember thirteen of them.

There is nothing to type and nothing to score. A card comes up, the room does what it says, and whoever is holding the phone taps on to the next player. It is a game of people in a room; the screen is the deck and the referee, and that is all it tries to be.

The thirteen cards

Ace is a waterfall - everyone drinks, and nobody stops before the person on their right. Two is you, picking somebody to drink; three is me, and that is you. Four sends everyone to the floor and seven to the ceiling, last one there drinking in both cases. Five and six are the guys and the girls.

Eight ties you to a mate, who drinks whenever you do. Nine is a rhyme and ten a category, going round until somebody fails. A jack lets you make up a rule that holds until the next jack, and a queen makes you the Question Master - answer a question of theirs and you drink, until the next queen takes it off you.

Kings fill the cup. Every one that comes up pours a little more in, and whoever draws the last one drinks it - which is where the game gets its name and where a round ends.

What the app remembers for you

Three things, and only three: your mate, the Question Master and the cup. They are the ones that outlive the card that started them, and a room an hour into an evening cannot be asked to hold them. The mate shows on both seats, the Question Master wears a badge that moves on the next queen, and the cup fills across the top of the table.

Everything else is over the moment it is done, so the app says the rule and gets out of the way. That is also why a rule you make up on a jack is not typed in anywhere: the room remembers it, exactly as it would at a real table.

Your own ruleset

Every table plays the standard thirteen unless the host changes them. With PlayWeya Premium the host can rewrite any of the thirteen lines - a house rule for the four, something else entirely for the nine - and the table plays those instead.

The mate, the Question Master and the cup stay where they are. Rewriting the eight renames Mate; it does not take the mate away, because those three are attached to the rank rather than to the words.

One phone round the table

There is no hand to hide - the card is face up the moment it is drawn - so this plays perfectly on a single phone passed round. Add everybody at the table and hand it on; the app names whoever is next and waits for them to take it.

It is built for that rather than merely allowing it: a King's Cup table is never listed for strangers to find, and there is no share button on it, because thirteen things done out loud belong to the people who are already there. There is no clock either - a waterfall takes as long as it takes, and the host can move past somebody who has wandered off.