Card Clear

How to play

1. How do you start a game of Card Clear?: The page opens straight into the highest level you have unlocked — there is no start button. Cards fall in row by row; tap the board to skip. A banner shows the level goal and move limit, then folds into the goal bar that stays on screen. On your very first game a pointing finger marks a swap you can make.
2. How do you swap and clear cards?: Tap a card to lift it. Every neighbour that would complete a hand gets a small tag with the hand name and its points, such as “Trips 30”. Tap that neighbour to swap, or press and slide a card towards it. Three to five cards in a straight row or column that form a poker hand break and score. A swap that makes no hand bounces back, tells you why and costs no move.
3. How do refills and combos work?: Cards above a cleared spot drop down and new cards fall in from the top. The three cards under “Next” in the goal bar are exactly the next three to drop in. If the refill makes another hand it clears by itself — that is a combo: ×1.5 on the second round, ×2 on the third, capped at ×3, shown by a growing badge on the board's top edge.
4. How do you clear a level and earn three stars?: Meet every goal on the goal bar before your moves run out. Each move left is then worth 50 points. Pass the level's 2-star and 3-star lines with your final score to earn those stars — the star bar lights the moment you cross a line. Failing costs nothing: the result card lists exactly how far short you were, and you can retry the same deal or get a new one.

Rules & variants

The board is 6 columns by 6 rows — 36 playing cards from two jokerless decks. Each level uses a different rank range: levels 1–3 use Ace to 6, levels 4–10 Ace to 8, levels 11–15 Ace to 10, levels 16–20 Ace to Queen, and from level 21 the full 13 ranks. Bigger decks make pairs of ranks rarer but straights and flushes more common.

Only 3 to 5 cards in a straight horizontal or vertical line count, in any order. The seven hands and their base points: three of a kind 30, suited run (three cards of one suit in sequence) 40, straight (five ranks in sequence, mixed suits) 100, flush (five of one suit, not in sequence) 120, full house 150, four of a kind 200, straight flush 300. An Ace plays high or low, so A-2-3 and Q-K-A are runs, but K-A-2 is not.

Hands unlock level by level: level 1 has only three of a kind, level 4 adds the suited run, level 7 four of a kind, level 11 the straight and flush, level 16 the full house and level 21 the straight flush. A hand that is not unlocked yet does not clear. The “Hands” strip above the board lists what is live and opens a chart with example cards.

A move swaps two cards that touch up, down, left or right, and it only counts if it makes at least one hand. Overlapping windows in the same row or column keep only the best one (four of a kind beats the three of a kind inside it), while a cross or L-shape scores both lines and clears the shared card once.

Combos: the first round of clears from a swap scores ×1, a refill that clears again scores ×1.5, then ×2, ×2.5 and a cap of ×3 from round five, rounded down per hand. Every 5-card hand (straight, flush, full house, straight flush) adds one move, up to two extra moves per swap including its combos.

Refills are predictable. Columns refill left to right, each from the bottom up, in stock order, and the goal bar always shows the top three cards of the stock. Cleared cards go to a discard pile that is shuffled under the stock only when it runs low, and cards already in the stock never change order — so the three “Next” cards really are the next three in.

You can never get stuck: every opening board has no ready-made hands and at least one legal swap, and if a move leaves no legal swap at all the 36 cards are reshuffled for free — no move spent, no points, no goal progress lost. There are no boosters, lives, timers or paid moves.

Goals come in four kinds: reach a score, make a hand a number of times (“5-card hands” means any straight, flush, full house or straight flush), clear a number of cards of one suit, or clear a number of cards of one rank. A level has up to three goals and all must be met; meeting them on your last move still counts.

Every deal has a board code like 12-0 — the level, then the deal number. The same code always gives the same board and the same refill order, so “Try again” replays the deal you just lost, and “Copy board link” lets a friend play exactly your deal, even a level they have not unlocked yet.

Strategy: read the three “Next” cards before you swap — a move that lets the refill complete a hand is often worth more than the biggest hand on the board; swap low on the board so more cards fall and chain into combos; keep spots that can become 5-card hands, since each one is a free move; for suit or rank goals, quick trips and runs beat chasing big hands; and use Hint when stuck — it shows the highest-scoring move right now and costs nothing.

FAQ