Spite & Malice is a two-player card game of racing to empty your payoff stack before your opponent empties theirs. Each player has their own payoff stack, their own hand, and four personal discard piles. Everyone shares four center piles in the middle of the table.
Be the first player to play every card from your payoff stack onto the center. The moment your payoff stack hits zero, you win immediately — the game ends right there, even mid-turn.
Each of the four shared center piles builds up in sequence from Ace through Queen (Ace=1 up to Queen=12). A pile starts empty and only accepts an Ace first, then 2, then 3, and so on.
When a center pile is completed (reaches Queen), it's cleared away and all those cards are shuffled back into the shared draw pile — so the game never runs out of cards, and that pile opens back up empty, ready for a new Ace.
On your turn, you can play a card to a center pile from any of three places: your hand, the top of your payoff stack, or the top of any of your discard piles. You can chain as many plays as you're able to in a single turn.
Your turn ends when you discard a card from your hand onto one of your own discard piles. This is the only way to end your turn voluntarily — and it's mandatory if you have no more legal plays to the center.
Every King is wild. A King can be played on any center pile, and it automatically acts as whatever value that pile needs next.
For example, if a center pile's top card is a 4, a King played there acts as a 5. If a center pile is empty, a King played there acts as an Ace. The game highlights every valid pile when you select a King, since it's usually playable in more than one place.
Kings can come from your hand, your payoff stack, or a discard pile, exactly like any other card. The one thing a King can't do is be discarded to end your turn from a discard pile — see the discard rules below.
Discard piles are one-way. Cards can move out of a discard pile onto a center pile, but they can never move into a discard pile except from your hand.
| Card is selected from… | Can play to center? | Can discard (end turn)? |
|---|---|---|
| Hand | Yes | Yes |
| Payoff stack | Yes | No |
| A discard pile | Yes | No |
You cannot shuffle a card from one discard pile to another, and you cannot "park" a payoff stack card on a discard pile to save it for later. If you select a payoff or discard pile card, the game will only let you play it to a center pile — your discard piles simply won't respond as a destination while that card is selected.
You win the instant you play the last card from your payoff stack onto a center pile. The game ends immediately at that moment — it doesn't matter what's in your hand or discard piles, and it doesn't matter whose turn it would have been next.
When your payoff stack is down to its final card, that card glows on screen as a reminder — your next play there could end the game.
Local games run entirely on one device — useful for playing against the computer, or two people sharing one screen.
Hosting means your device holds the official game state — think of it as sitting at the head of the table. Online games connect device-to-device; once connected, there's no ongoing server involved in your moves.
Some phones (iPhones in particular) sometimes block an automatic clipboard copy. If that happens, the code is still shown on screen and gets automatically selected for you — just copy it manually and paste it into WhatsApp.
Q. The code I pasted "didn't look right" — what happened?
Connection codes are long and need to be copied in full. The most common cause is a partial copy or paste — go back to WhatsApp, copy the entire code message again (including the MDW1- prefix at the start), and paste the whole thing in one go. Avoid adding line breaks or extra spaces before or after it.
Q. I tapped Connect & Start (or Generate Reply Code) and nothing happens.
This usually means the pasted code is incomplete or was altered slightly (some keyboards "helpfully" autocorrect or autocapitalize part of a pasted code). Try copying it again directly from WhatsApp rather than retyping any part of it.
Q. We exchanged codes correctly, but the game never connects.
This is almost always a network issue rather than a code issue. The two devices need to find a direct path to each other across the internet, and certain networks make that difficult or impossible — particularly some mobile carrier networks, and most corporate, school, or public WiFi networks with strict firewalls. If you're on one of these networks, try switching one device to regular home WiFi or mobile data and attempt the connection again.
Q. Can two people on completely different continents actually play together?
Yes — distance itself isn't a problem, the connection works the same way whether you're in the same room or on opposite sides of the world. What matters is the type of network each device is on, not how far apart you are.
Q. The connection dropped mid-game — can we resume?
Not currently — if either player's browser tab closes, refreshes, or loses its connection, the game session ends and a new one needs to be started from scratch with a fresh code exchange. There's no save/resume for online games yet.
Q. WhatsApp didn't open automatically when I tapped the invite button.
Some browsers block an automatically-opened link if it happens slightly after your tap (which can occur here, since the game briefly prepares your connection code first). If this happens, a "tap here to open it" link will appear — use that instead.
Enter your name once on the setup screen — it's saved on your device and reused automatically for every future game, local or online. Your opponent will see this name during online games instead of a generic "Opponent" label.
Your name is stored only on your own device's browser storage. It isn't sent anywhere except directly to the person you connect with for a game.
| Rule | Summary |
|---|---|
| Win condition | Play the last card from your payoff stack to any center pile |
| Center pile order | Ace → 2 → 3 → … → Queen, then the pile clears |
| King | Wild — plays on any center pile as whatever value it needs next |
| Hand size | 5 cards, refilled at start of turn or instantly if emptied mid-turn |
| Discard piles | One-way — only hand cards can be discarded into them; they can only feed center piles, never each other |
| Card sources for center play | Hand, payoff stack top, or any discard pile top |
| Ending your turn | Discard a hand card to any of your discard piles |