Twelve card games, a trivia board game and ten puzzle games, all in one place. Kortrommet (“The Card Room”) is my own online games room, and you can play in your browser on your phone, tablet or computer. Play with friends in real time, or take on computer opponents whenever you like.

From one card game to a whole games room

It all started with Liverpool Rummy. It’s a game my family has played around the kitchen table for years, but we couldn’t find a good way to play it together when we weren’t in the same room. So I built a version myself. Then someone asked for Gin Rummy. Then Hearts, then Crazy Eights, and then the Norwegian classics Idioten, Mattis and Bums. Bit by bit, one game became a whole games room. I’ve called it Kortrommet, which is Norwegian for “the card room”.

Kortrommet runs in your browser, so there’s nothing to download from an app store. Open the page on your phone, tablet or computer, create an account and pick a game. If you like, you can also add Kortrommet to your home screen. It then opens full screen, just like an ordinary app.

Twelve card games around a live table

All the card games are played live. Everyone at the table sees the same cards move at the same moment, so it feels like sitting at a real table. You can create a public table that anyone can join, or a private one for family and friends with an invite code. Too few people? Tick a box and computer opponents fill the empty seats. They play at three difficulty levels, from relaxed to tough. If a table is full, latecomers can watch the game as spectators. A built-in chat makes room for the usual table talk.

The collection mixes international favourites with Norwegian family classics:

Game	Players	In short
Liverpool Rummy	2–5	Seven rounds, seven contracts, and the race to buy the card you need.
Gin Rummy	2	The classic duel: knock early or go for gin.
Go Fish	2–6	Ask, guess and remember, and collect the most books.
Contract Rummy	2–5	Also called Shanghai: eleven cards and seven contracts.
Phase 10	2–5	Ten phases, and a race to be first through all of them.
Crazy Eights	2–5	Match the suit or the rank. Eights change everything.
Idioten	2–5	The Norwegian classic: get rid of every card, or be the Idiot.
Mattis	2–8	Collect tricks, then shed them, or be the Mattis.
Old Maid	2–6	Pair up, and don’t get stuck with the odd card.
Mau-Mau	2–5	Match the suit or the rank, and remember to say “Mau!”
Hearts	4	Avoid the hearts, or take them all.
Bums (President)	3–8	Climb from Bums to President, and pay the card tax.

Every game comes with full rules you can read during play. The table shows whose turn it is and what you can do next, so new players learn as they go. Your profile tracks games played, games won, best scores and your match history.

The Knowledge Wheel: a trivia night for the whole family

Kunnskapshjulet, the Knowledge Wheel, is a board game built around trivia questions. Roll the die, move around the wheel and answer questions in six categories: geography, entertainment, history, art & literature, science & nature, and sport & leisure. Get a “wedge question” right and you win that category’s wedge. Collect them all (six, or three in the quick game), then make it to the centre and answer one last question correctly to win.

You choose the difficulty when you create the table. Easy is made for children up to about 12, Medium suits everyone, and Hard is for anyone who thinks they know everything. Two to six players can join, and you can make up the numbers with computer players.

You can choose between English and Norwegian questions. Be aware that the English question bank is considerably larger than the Norwegian one. The English bank holds about 4,500 questions, partly drawn from the open Open Trivia Database. The Norwegian collection has about 490 questions, which I’ve written myself. When a category starts to run low on English questions, the game fetches fresh ones online automatically, so you will rarely see the same question twice. The Norwegian collection is growing, but for a long trivia night with lots of variety, English is the best choice for now.

Ten puzzle games for a quiet moment

You don’t always have three friends ready for a game of cards. That’s what the mini games are for. They’re single-player games you can pick up on the bus, during a coffee break or on the sofa, and put down again whenever you like. Most of them remember where you left off.

• Mahjongg: the classic tile solitaire on the “turtle” layout. Match pairs of free tiles until the pile is gone.
• Hexagon: a duel against the computer on a honeycomb board. Big numbers capture smaller neighbours in chain reactions, including your own.
• Parking Panic: get the cars out of a packed car park in the right order and fill them with waiting passengers.
• Sugar Swap: match three or more sweets, build striped sweets and bombs, and work your way through the levels.
• Arrow Cube: turn a 3D cube and clear every arrow. Each one needs a free path to the edge.
• Block Rain: steer the falling blocks and fill whole lines. It gets faster every level.
• Sudoku: the number classic, with fresh boards every time, four difficulty levels, notes and hints.
• Shisen-Sho: clear mahjong tiles in pairs, joined by a line with at most two bends.
• KMines: classic Minesweeper. Use the numbers to find every mine.
• KNetWalk: turn the cable pieces until every computer is connected to the server.

Your games room, your order

Everyone has their favourites, so you decide the order of the games on your own home screen. Tap Change order, then move the games with the arrows on your phone or drag them into place on a computer. The order is saved to your account and follows you from device to device. It never changes what anyone else sees.

Made for every screen and six languages

Kortrommet was designed for phones from the start, with large cards, clear buttons and a layout that works with one hand. On a tablet or computer the same games room opens up and uses the extra space. The whole interface is available in English, Norwegian, German, French, Spanish and Chinese, and you can switch language at any time with a single tap. That makes it easy to gather a family spread across several countries around the same table.

Pull up a chair

Kortrommet is a hobby project made with love for good old card games, and it keeps growing. If there’s a game you miss, a rule your family plays differently, or a question you think belongs in the Knowledge Wheel, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Now shuffle the deck and invite someone to a game!

Open Kortrommet and play