Shelem

About the game

Shelem mixes bidding with trick-taking, in two teams of two with partners facing each other. Each player gets twelve cards, and four stay face down in the middle. In turn, everyone bids from 100 to 165 points in steps of five, or passes. The winner of the bidding picks up the middle cards, puts four cards back, names the trump suit and leads. Aces and tens are worth ten points, fives are worth five, and each trick is worth five, so there are 165 to fight for.

Make your bid and you score what your team took; fall short and you lose the amount you bid. Taking every trick is a shelem, worth 330. You play with an AI partner against two AI rivals. It is one of a set of small card games written by the author of Chogan with the help of AI tools; the cards are drawn by the code and the sounds are generated while you play.

Playing it here

Click Play and start a match. First comes the bidding: raise the bid with the bid button or pass. If you win it, choose four cards to put back and pick the trump suit. Then play your cards by clicking or tapping them; you must follow the suit led if you can. The rules and a short tutorial are inside the game.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Do not overbid. A lost contract costs you the whole bid.

Put back low, scattered cards. Keep what builds a strong trump suit.

Remember where the point cards went. Aces and tens decide most hands.

Credits and licence

Shelem is part of Chogan by Chogan (choganhq), published under the MIT licence. The repository was written with the help of AI, and this page says so openly. Everything is drawn by the code and the sounds are generated on the fly; the only font is Vazirmatn (SIL Open Font License 1.1). The licence texts are linked from this page. We took out the app shell: this game opens on its own, with no app menu, sharing or league points, the language follows the site's (the Portuguese was translated by us) and nothing is requested from other sites.