About How to Play Any Game
How to Play Any Game is a plain-language library of game rules. Every game gets exactly one page: a stat strip (players, time, ages, what you need, difficulty), a Quick Start that gets a game moving in about two minutes, the full rules turn by turn, the scoring, and a Settle the Argument section that rules on the game’s famous disputes with the official answer.
How the rules are checked
Rules are facts, but a rulebook’s words belong to its publisher — so every page here is written from scratch, in our own words and our own structure. Before a page is published it is cross-checked against at least two sources, ranked in this order: the publisher’s current official rules for the current edition; the recognised governing or tournament body where one genuinely exists (FIDE for chess, the American Cribbage Congress for cribbage, NASPA for tournament Scrabble); and long-standing references for the traditional games nobody owns. Each page names the edition it covers and carries a last-verified date.
Where sources disagree, the page says so — a disagreement almost always marks an edition change or a house rule, and the page handles it openly instead of papering over it.
Official rules vs. house rules
This is the site’s one hard rule: house rules are always labelled as house rules. The famous example is Monopoly’s Free Parking jackpot — beloved, widespread, and not in the official rules. You’ll find it on the Monopoly page, in the House Rules box, marked NOT OFFICIAL. Play any house rule your table loves; just know which ones are yours.
Unofficial, on purpose
This site is an unofficial rules library. Game names are trademarks of their publishers and are used here the way a newspaper or a review uses them — to identify the game being explained. Nothing here implies affiliation, endorsement, or official status, and no publisher’s artwork or logos are used; every diagram and illustration is our own.
Who runs it
How to Play Any Game is published by Dark Haus Studio in Winnipeg, Canada, and written for players everywhere. Found a ruling you think is wrong? We want to hear it — corrections are how a rules library earns trust. See the Contact page.