Koa, ndan!
The Minangkabau card game koa, online with your mandan. Free.
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What is Koa?
Koa (also called kartu ceki) is a card game from Minangkabau. Four players sit around a table, two against two: your mandan, your partner, sits across from you. Collect cards until you are ceki, then win with koa.
With your mandan
Create a match, invite friends with a 6-character code, and play 2 against 2 live.
Practice against bots
No friends around? Train against bots, with no sign-in needed.
Friends and ranking
Add friends, see who is online, and climb the tiers with an Elo rating.
The app
How to play
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Start
Press Play Now. Want to try first? Choose Practice against bots, no sign-in. To play with other people, sign in with Google (or Apple on iPhone).
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Create or join a table
Choose Create match and send the table code to your friends, or Join code if a friend made the table. Mandan sit across from each other; the host starts the match once everyone is ready.
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Take your turn
Each turn: take one card, then throw one. Take with cabut from the arena, or makan the card the player on your left just threw.
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Build ceki, then koa
Build one koa pair and three sets to be ceki. You win when anyone draws your koa card from the arena. The winning team is you and your mandan.
Rules
Deck and deal
The deck has 180 cards (3 lakon): 30 card types, 6 copies each. Always exactly 4 players, 11 cards each; the rest is the arena.
Your turn
Take one card, then throw one.
- Cabut: draw from the arena.
- Makan / geser: take the latest card thrown by the player on your left (the only throw you can take). A card taken this way cannot be thrown in the same turn.
A turn lasts 30 seconds. When it runs out, the table draws and throws for you.
Sets
- Mato: 3 identical cards.
- Kaki: 3 cards of the same group; they may repeat.
- Koa pair: 2 identical cards.
Ceki (ready to win)
A koa pair plus 3 sets with at least one mato: 1 mato + 2 kaki, 2 mato + 1 kaki, or 3 mato. Three kaki alone is not ceki.
Everyone sees who is ceki, and ceki players see every card drawn from the arena.
Koa (win)
You win when anyone draws your koa card from the arena. Makan never wins.
If one draw completes several ceki hands, the drawer wins first, then the first ceki player after the drawer in turn order.
Hiu
Hiu can be in a mato or a kaki but never the koa pair. To makan a hiu you must hold a pair of it.
You may hold at most five hiu. If you take a sixth (cabut or makan), the card you throw that turn must be a hiu.
Takabek
When an opponent eats a card you threw, you cannot throw that card type until one of these happens: the one who ate it throws that exact card, the one who ate it becomes ceki, or you become ceki. If either of you is already ceki when the card is eaten, no ban starts. You may throw the banned card itself if the hand you keep is then ceki.
Rounds
The host chooses Quick match or Full match in the waiting room. Quick ends at the first koa. In Full, each koa gives its player a mark: batu, gantung, then putuih. The first player to putuih wins for their team; marks are not shared with their mandan.
A gantung player who holds any hiu must throw one every turn and may not makan a hiu. If the arena runs out, the round is a draw (arena habis): no mark is given, and the next player starts.