Play, Collect and Trade!
How the site looks in this browser. Changes apply straight away.
Sound effects in this browser. Turning a group on plays a sample from it.
Your names and email. Other players only ever see your display name.
Change the password you sign in with. You'll need your current one.
The tabs along the top take you to the Lobby, Collection, Rankings, Guilds, Shop, Auction House, Forums (coming soon) and this Help page. On a phone, they're tucked behind the ☰ button at the top.
On the right of the top bar you'll see your gold, crystals and tokens, the envelope button for Friends & Messages, the gear button for Settings, the Support button (a mug with a heart) that opens the Ko-fi page if you'd like to leave a tip for the game, and your name. Click your name for My Profile, Edit Profile and Log Out.
Global Chat sits in the middle. Its Channel menu narrows what you see: Chat Only (just players' messages), My Mentions (messages that @mention you), Notifications (the notices sent only to you, such as your gold, EXP and level ups) and System Messages (announcements sent to everyone, such as tournaments). Each channel shows its latest 100 messages. Type @ and a name to mention another player, and messages that mention you are highlighted. Start a message with /me to describe what you're doing: /me waves shows as YourName waves. It works in every chat.
Emotes work in every chat: Global, Guild, Match and Direct Messages. Click the chocobo button beside SEND to pick one (search by name, and your most used ones are at the top), or type : and the start of a name, like :wave, and pick from the suggestions with Tab or Enter. Hold Shift while clicking to add several without closing the picker. Each emote has a code, like :choco_wave:, which you can also type in full. A message of only a few emotes shows them a little larger.
Below Global Chat, Available Games lists every open table and match in progress, which you can filter by format and status. Click JOIN on an open table, or watch a live match as a spectator.
On the right, Online Players shows everyone who's on, with All, Friends and Guild tabs and a search. Click any name to open that player's profile. Staff carry a red Administrator or green Moderator tag, and the two lobby bots, SHODAN and GLaDOS, carry a blue Bot tag. Bots are always listed but can't be messaged, traded with or challenged. @mention one in Global Chat or Guild Chat, though, and a moment later it answers you with a line of its own from its games. News & Events sits below it, and a Tournament panel appears while one is running.
On the left of the Lobby: your avatar, name, title, guild, level and EXP, your gold, crystals and tokens, and your win/loss/draw record. Click your avatar to open your full profile, or the small pencil to edit how it looks. Create Game is at the bottom of the card.
Every card in the game, grouped by set and level, with how many of each set you own. You can save up to 5 hands of 5 cards each here, so there's no need to rebuild your hand every time you host a Triple Triad table. Cards you don't own yet are locked. Once you've seen one in a match (played, captured, in an Open hand, or while spectating), its art shows faded behind the lock, and you can hover over it for a closer look.
Click Create Game, choose a game mode (Triple Triad or Quintra Triad), set any optional rules and pick a hand. Then either host the table for another player, or choose a difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard or Master) and click VS AI to play the computer straight away.
Open anyone's profile to Challenge them (a direct match request with your chosen rules) or Trade with them (offer cards and/or gold for theirs). From a profile you can also message them, add them as a friend, or block them.
New accounts: trading, the Auction House, and matches with a wager or a Trade Rule unlock once your account is 7 days old and has reached Level 5. Until then you can still play any match without a wager or Trade Rule, against players or the AI.
When someone challenges you, asks for a trade, or asks for a rematch, a small card slides in at the top right. It shows who it's from and the rules, with ACCEPT and DENY buttons and a timer. You can keep doing whatever you were doing, and if you don't answer, it simply expires: 20 seconds for challenges and trades, 25 for rematches. The ✕ hides it early without answering. Once a request is declined or expires, the sender has to wait 60 seconds before sending that player the same kind of request again.
Tick Keep me signed in on the login screen to stay signed in on that device for up to 30 days since you last played. Leave it unticked (the default) and you're signed out when you close the browser, or after 12 hours without use. Don't tick it on a shared or public device.
Triple Triad is a card-battle game played on a 3×3 board. Each player has a hand of 5 cards, and takes turns placing one card at a time into an empty space, until the board is full.
Every card has 4 numbers on it: Top, Right, Bottom, and Left, representing how strong that side of the card is in a fight. Numbers run from 1 (weak) to A (strongest, representing 10).
When you place a card next to an opponent's card, the game compares the touching sides. If your number is higher than the number facing it, you capture their card. It flips to your color and now counts as yours, even though it stays where it is on the board.
Once all 9 spaces are filled, whoever owns the most cards overall, on the board and still in hand, wins the match. A tie is a draw, unless the Sudden Death rule is active (see Advanced Rules).
That's genuinely all you need to play your first match. Everything below is optional depth for when you're ready for it.
Whoever hosts a table (or challenges another player) chooses which of these are switched on. None of them are required to play, and an incoming challenge always shows its rules before you accept.
Trade Rules decide what the loser gives up. All are off by default (None).
Quintra Triad plays by the same capturing rules as Triple Triad above, on a much bigger stage: a bigger board, bigger hands, and a turn structure built around chance and quick thinking rather than free choice.
A 5×5 grid (25 spaces) with some random cells blocked off at the start of every match, permanently unplaceable and shown crossed out on the board. They add real chokepoints to plan around. Whoever sets up the match picks how many, from none up to 5 (3 unless changed).
13 cards. With Random hand on (the default for Quintra Triad), they're drawn randomly from your collection when the match starts. Turn it off and each player brings their own Quintra Hand: 13 cards you pick and save on the Collection page, below your five Triple Triad hands. A Level Restriction always deals the hand at random from that level. You'll need to own at least 13 different cards to host, join, or be challenged to a Quintra Triad match.
Instead of freely choosing from your hand, each turn you're shown one random card from it, and you must place that specific card somewhere on the board. If you don't like it, you can hit Discard once per turn to swap it for a different random card from your hand instead, but only once.
Every Advanced Rule above (Same, Plus, Combo, Open, Sudden Death, Wager, Level Restriction) can still be applied to a Quintra Triad table. The one exception is Trade Rules, which are always locked to None, since risking cards from a 13-card hand (often one you didn't choose yourself) is considered too high-stakes, so nothing can ever be wagered card-for-card in this mode.
AI opponents are available at all four difficulties, same as Triple Triad.
Open the Guilds tab to browse every guild, see its members, and ask to join one, or create your own if you aren't in one already. Each guild has its own chat and roster, with a Leader, Officers and Members. Leaders and Officers look after the guild's info, bio and membership, and the Leader can remove a member by clicking their row on the roster. If a Leader leaves or closes their account, leadership passes to the longest-standing Officer (or Member).
Click the envelope button in the top bar. From there you can:
A badge on the envelope shows unread messages and pending friend requests. Blocking someone is never shown to them.
The Rankings tab shows the top levels, top PvP wins and top guilds, a table of the EXP needed for each level, your own match history, and the whole server's recent matches. Click ▶ REPLAY beside a match to step through it move by move. Replays are kept for 30 days.
Every match earns gold and EXP. Against another player, a win pays 75 gold and 160 EXP, a draw 25 gold and 75 EXP, and a loss 10 gold and 45 EXP. Matches against the AI pay half that and don't count towards your win/loss/draw record. Each day your first 30 AI matches pay their full EXP; after that, AI matches pay a quarter of their EXP until the daily reset at midnight UTC. Gold and PvP matches are not affected. Forfeiting or leaving a match mid-game earns nothing. Each turn has a 90-second timer. If it runs out, a random card is played for you and your next turn is only 30 seconds; run out of time twice in a row and you lose the match by forfeit. Placing a card yourself clears it. If you lose connection or refresh during a match, you have 1:30 to get back, in total for the whole match, so refreshing doesn't restart the clock. A page that's still open puts you straight back in once the connection returns; otherwise a Match in Progress window lets you rejoin or abandon. Your opponent sees the countdown while you're away and wins if it runs out. In the first 20 seconds of a match, you can call it off with End by Agreement beside the Forfeit button: once both players have pressed it (or just you, against the AI) the match ends with no result at all, no gold or EXP, and it doesn't appear in match history. It isn't available in tournament matches. Server events can boost gold or EXP for a while, and they're announced in News & Events.
Levels go up to 50, and you earn a new title every 5 levels, from Card Novice up to Triad Sovereign at level 50. Your reward and level-up notices appear in Global Chat (only you see them), where you can dismiss them one at a time, or all at once with Clear Notifications in the chat's settings (the cog).
Spend gold on booster packs (5 random cards from a level range), avatar equipment, and avatar icons. Booster packs open into a reveal where you flip each card.
Sell cards you own for a fixed price or as a timed auction, and browse or search other players' listings by name, price and type, sorted by newest, price or ending soonest. History shows every completed sale (or just your own trades), and searching a card name there gives its average, lowest, highest and latest sale price. When you pick a card to sell, its recent prices and the cheapest Buy Now listing are shown, along with what you'll receive after the 5% fee. My Listings keeps track of what you're selling, and My Bids shows the auctions you're currently winning. You'll get a notice when your listing sells, when you win an auction, when someone bids on yours, and when you're outbid (your gold is returned straight away).
Use Edit Profile to choose a simple icon or build a custom avatar. A custom avatar is made from a body type and skin tone plus five equipment slots: head, body, legs, accessory and background. Equipment you've bought in the Shop shows up here to equip. You can also set your favorite cards, a country flag and a bio.
Open Settings with the gear button in the top bar:
Your login username can never be changed.
Any match in progress in Available Games can be watched live. You'll see the board and both scores, but you can't affect the game. Close the window to stop watching.
When a match against another player ends, the results window offers a REMATCH button. Your opponent gets a rematch request they can accept or deny within 25 seconds.
Staff can start a 4, 8, 16 or 32-player knockout tournament in either game mode. When one opens, it's announced in Global Chat. Type !join in Global Chat to enter, and the Tournament panel in the Lobby shows the bracket as it plays out. Tournament matches never have a wager or a Trade Rule, and Sudden Death is always on, so every match has a winner.
Every check below is a heuristic based on recorded match/account data. A flag is a reason to take a closer look, not proof of anything. Legitimate explanations (a generous owner grant, a lucky streak, a long play session) can trigger these too.
Restoring replaces every player's data with the snapshot, so it's done over SSH with the game server stopped. From the project folder:
pm2 stop triple-triad (pm2 list shows the name if it differs). Turning on Maintenance Mode first, in Owner Tools, signs players out with a notice.node tools/restore-backup.js lists the snapshots, newest first.node tools/restore-backup.js latest, or give a file name from the list. It checks the snapshot, shows what's in it and asks before changing anything.pm2 start triple-triadYour current database is saved into backups/pre-restore/ first, so a restore can be undone the same way. Use DOWNLOAD to keep a copy on your own computer.
Click a card to flip it, or reveal them all at once.