Five cards each. Match the card on the table by shape or by number, and be the first with nothing left in your hand. Every house plays it a little differently, so this page says exactly what our tables play: which numbers pick, which one blocks, and what happens when you forget to say last card.
Fifty-four cards: five shapes, and five Whot cards numbered 20. Not every shape has every number. Circles and triangles run 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Crosses and squares run 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14. Stars run 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8.
Everyone gets five cards. The rest is the market. One card is turned face up to start the pile, and it is never a Whot. That first card is only a card to match: if it is a 2, nobody picks two, and if it is an 8, nobody is skipped.
On your turn, play a card that has the same shape or the same number as the top card. A square 10 goes on a square 3 or on a circle 10.
A 20 can be played on any card. When you play it you call a shape. The next card played has to be that shape, or another Whot. The number on a Whot matches nothing, so nobody can follow it by number.
If you cannot play, or would rather not, draw one card from the market. That is your whole turn. You do not get to play the card you just drew.
You can put down more than one card in a turn if they all have the same number. The first one has to match the table. The others ride on the number, and the last one you lay is the card the next player has to answer. Whots cannot be played this way: a 20 goes down alone.
A 2 or a 5 does not make anyone draw straight away. It puts a debt on the table and the turn passes. The player facing it always gets a turn, and can pass the debt on, block it, or go to market and draw all of it. The cards below say how each of those works.
When you play down to one card, announce it. For the first two seconds only you can call. After that any opponent can catch you, and if they do you draw two. The call stays open until you are caught or you are no longer holding exactly one card. If nobody catches you, nothing happens. When two people press at nearly the same moment, the one who reacted faster wins. Each press is timed on the player's own device from the moment they saw the card go down, so a slow connection does not lose you the call. An announce that was really faster cancels a catch, and the two cards go back.
The first player to empty their hand wins. Any card can be your last, including a special card or a Whot, and whatever it would have done is dropped. Go out on a 2 and nobody picks. Go out while facing a pick, with a card that answers it, and the debt is gone too. At a table of three or more, check up only settles first place. The players still holding cards can vote to play the same hand on for second and third.
When the market is empty, the played pile is shuffled back in, all but its top card. If a player goes to market and there is still nothing to draw, or the game reaches 500 moves, it goes to tender. Everyone adds up the numbers in their hand. The lowest total wins, a Whot counts 20, and equal lowest totals are a draw.
Six numbers do something and one more can block. Everything else (3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13) is a plain card.
The player before you put down the circle 2. You owe two cards. While a debt is on the table, only a 2, a 5, a 7 or a Whot can be played, and all but the Whot still have to match the circle 2 by shape or by number.
Holding none of the four that play, you go to market and draw two, and the turn passes. If you had passed it on with the circle 5, the next player would be looking at a circle 5 and a debt of five: any 5, the circle 2, the circle 7 or a Whot would answer it.
Whot is Nigeria's card game. The deck is the same everywhere: five shapes and the 20s. The rules are not. Which numbers pick, whether a pick can be answered, and what a 7 is worth all change from one house to the next.
If your family plays it differently from the rules above, your family is not wrong. These are the ones our tables use, so that two people who have never met can sit down and agree.
Whot is one of the games in the Arcade.