Declare

Declare is a fast-paced single-player card game where you face off against an AI opponent, using a standard 52-card deck. Using strategy, probability, and deception, the goal of the game is to have the computer have the highest amount of points before you receive more than or equal to 100 points.

• Bluff, Count, and Declare — Track your opponent's hand, weigh the odds, and decide the exact moment to call declare before they beat you to it

• High-Stakes Push-Your-Luck Scoring — Get greedy and misjudge your declare, and you'll eat the penalty — bad reads can cost you the whole game

• Smart AI Opponent — Play against a computer that reacts to the discard pile, your visible plays, and its own hand value to make calculated moves

• Multiple Game Modes — Different modifiers change the rules just enough to keep every session feeling different

• Persistent High Scores & Stats — Track your performance across sessions and chase your best run, synced automatically through Steam Cloud so your progress follows you across devices

• Handcrafted Pixel Art & Sound — Original pixel art, from a mandala-adorned background to face cards reimagined as Indian royalty, paired with an Indian-fusion jazz soundtrack built for a cozy but tense card-table feel

• Cross-Platform — Play on Windows or macOS with smooth, responsive controls built for mouse-only gameplay

Goal of the Game

The goal of the game is to have the computer have the highest amount of points before you receive more than or equal to 100 points. To achieve this, you have to have the least number of points in your hand when a player declares each round. If you receive more than or equal to 100 points across any number of rounds, the game is over and the computer’s total score will be your score for that game. A game is played until you receive more than or equal to 100 points.

Contents and Setup

The game is played with a standard deck of 52 cards. Points are scored by the rank associated with a card. Cards with rank 2-10 have points equal to their rank. Face cards (J, Q, K) are all equal to 10 points. Aces are equal to 1 point. The game starts with each player being dealt 5 cards from the deck. The rest of the deck is then placed face down between the players.

How to Play

To complete a turn, you must either click the DECLARE button to end the round or by dropping cards from your hand. You should click the DECLARE button when you think you have the least number of points in your hand compared to the computer. You must drop a single card or multiple cards of the same rank on each of your turns (unless you declare). To select the card(s) you want to drop, you can simply click on them and they will start to hover. After selecting what cards you want to drop, you must either click on the deck to draw a card or the discard pile to pickup the top card. All dropped cards will be put into the discard pile face up. Different game modes will have modifiers that change some of the rules of the game slightly, but the core gameplay remains the same in all game modes.

Scoring

When a player declares, the value of all of their cards are added up to get their total. Totals are then compared between players. If the declaring player has the lowest total, they receive 0 points and the opposing player receives their total as points. However, if the opposing player has a lower total compared to the declaring player, then the declaring player’s attempt is broken. The opposing player receives -10 points and the declaring player receives the total points of both players.