Cheery Chimp

Build melds, complete a canasta, and be first to empty your hand.

The idea

Canasta is a melding game played with two decks and four jokers. You collect cards of the same rank into melds on the table, aiming to build a canasta — a meld of seven or more — and then go out by emptying your hand. Play continues over several hands until someone reaches the target score.

Wild cards & red threes

• Wild cards — every 2 and every Joker can stand in for any rank inside a meld.
• Red threes — 3♥ and 3♦ are bonus cards. They're set aside for you automatically (you never play them) and score at the end.

Your turn

Each turn goes: draw → meld → discard.

• Draw the top card of the stock — or, once you've made your first meld, take the whole discard pile (see below).
• Meld if you like: tap cards in your hand to select them, then Meld, or tap one of your existing melds to add to it.
• Discard one card to end your turn.

Melds

A meld is three or more cards of the same rank. It must have at least two natural cards and no more than three wilds. You keep one meld per rank — add new cards to it rather than starting a second.

Your first meld of a hand must be worth a minimum number of points (it starts at 50 and rises as your score grows). A note under your hand shows your running total toward it.

Canastas

A meld of seven or more cards is a canasta:

• natural  no wilds — worth 500.
• mixed  uses wilds — worth 300.

You need at least one canasta before you're allowed to go out.

Taking the discard pile

Instead of drawing, you can scoop up the entire discard pile — but you must immediately meld its top card. Select the matching cards from your hand first, then Take pile.

• If the pile is frozen (a wild was thrown into it, shown by a ❄), you need two natural cards of the top card's rank.
• Otherwise a matching meld, two naturals, or a natural plus a wild will do.
• You can't take a pile topped by a wild or a black three.

Scoring

Each hand, your melded cards and bonuses are added up, and the cards left in your hand are subtracted. First to the target score (default 5000) wins.