Spades+ Wiki

I really like your game but i almost deleted it after playing quite a bit for some time. The computer team was able to go Nello almost every hand. When my computer partner went Nello, he usually got a book. After i reached a higher level this decreased but there are games that one of the computer team goes Nello most hands douing the game. I have used this to increase my skills in going Nello. But, quite often i am prevented from going Nello due to having one or two aces and am left with going with betting one or to books. Also my computer partner will recognize when i have the trump card but when it comes to the high cards, especially spades, he will trump me and we lose a book. This has caused us to not meet our bid several tomes. You have made a much better games than others have and i than you. Dad

Some of the low reviews are before the fix to the rated game. Now, the rated game is only 250 points, and no comments other than the 5 pre-programmed responses are allowed. There are still some bad players who will always bid nil, and then when they get set, bid 13 and leave, but that will always happen - Not a problem with the app, but with other players. Strange though. Each time I get up over 1950 points in my rating, I start getting horrible partners and will lose as many as 20 games in a row (a statistical impossibility) - that will take me down into the 1600s. I believe the apps matching is far from random - that when you reach a certain point level, you start getting paired up with historically bad bidders - ones who get set more often, or who don't understand team play.

Overall the game play is fine and it does what it is supposed to. There are no lags. I like to play solo (AI version). So this review is based on that. I have the free version and honestly couldn’t find a paid version, if that would make a difference. The biggest, most frustrating part of the game is your team player. It is like you are playing alone but have to also suffer poor decisions of partner. Here are some examples. 1. Going nil: I went nil. Yes it was a stretch, but it was just a game. My partner also went nil. So that means there is no way we could cover for each other. 2. Covering Partner: In real play, a partner would cover their teammate if it were a possible move. I went Nil. A suit was called that I had to play and it was only a mid range number. My partner, who was NOT going nil, threw a card less than mine so I won the trick cost our team 100 points. Turns out, they had the Ace of that suit. I could go on with examples like this where having a partner was worse than being a single player. Even if I could sort of get the first scenario, the second made no sense. If it was smart enough to know it didn’t have to over play because the partner had it, it should be smart enough to know the bid was nil and it shouldn’t use that tactic. Every time I play I get frustrated for those reasons. I got over the fact you couldn’t count on the partner. But final straw was when it bid nil when I already had.

Edit: 7/1/20 Developers did respond to my review and thanks for taking the time to do that. One easy fix you could do that would greatly benefit everyone who plays in rated multiplayer is eliminating the 13 bid. Original review below with grammatical corrections. This is a decent app for spades, and I appreciate the clean aesthetic without a lot of extra clutter on the screen BUT players will bid 13 if you make a mistake, or abandon the game, and even though they penalize the player who leaves, you still lose points on your rating when you lose. I’ve seen players completely sabotage games out of spite if they get set or get a book when the bid nil. It looks like you can’t get above 1700 points without spending money on more coins or the game will give you hands that are guaranteed to lose unless someone on the other team makes a serious mistake. And if your partner leaves and you decide to play with the pc partner, the ai will sabotage you too - by overbidding/underbidding. I recently had “shark” as a partner in multiplayer when it bid nil and proceeded to cut with a spade to win a book in a game I could’ve won. They need to fix that ASAP. It’s not fair to be punished for staying in the game when your partner quits or losing points because they left or sabotaged your game.

I have gotten used to the way the computer parter plays regular hands. Not how I would, but I accept that a computer might not see the game as me. But some of the way it plays when I have bid nil is inexcusable. When cutting a suit, it inexplicably cuts with its highest or 2nd highest spade, and no human would do something that dumb. That should be an easy fix. If I bid nil, cutting a different suit with the lowest spade is a no brainer. I cannot stress how many times I have lost because the computer partner has wasted a King of Spades cutting hearts and now can’t cover my highest spade because it only has a low spade. Another glitch is that when the computer partner bids nil, if it goes too long, it will randomly throw out a spade and cut a suit for no reason. It will have other non spades that it could have played instead but for some odd reason, it decides to play a spade and ends up taking a book. Maybe the algorithm says it’s likely I can cover, but that is not always the case and there’s NO REASON to gamble playing a spade when you bid a nil hand, unless you have no choice. To be fair, I have won many games because the computer opponent sometimes does this. But this glitch should be fixed.

This is a okay game with some serious issues. Here’s a list of a few 1- players are not well ranked and are often poor partners who make big mistakes that costs you. 2- players are allowed to drop out of the game after they screwed it up without penalty or consequence. 3- when players drop out of game bot takes over and their play is often as bad as beginners which again costs you. Very frustrating!!! 4- periodically the game locks up and you are booted or entire game is lost. 5- players who bail out of a game prematurely should be penalized for that action, regardless of whether the team wins or loses the game. Especially if they don’t make their bid or take a point on a Nill bid. There partner shouldn’t be left holding their trash bag. 6- some players are so slow in playing their cards. I understand once in awhile people get distracted but not every turn. It makes the game unenjoyable for other players. 7- often you can bid your hand perfectly but your partner over bids or doesn’t make their bids which resulted in you losing the game even when you play was spot on. Credit should be given for well played hands regardless of your partners poor play.

The AI partner is more of a liability than it’s worth. As soon as a player breaks spades, the AI empties all the spades in its hand, wiping out any advantage you might have had on a broken suit. For example: I have the 10, 5, 6, and 3 of spades, and only one heart. Once I play the heart, and break spades, instead of feeding out hearts to take advantage of it, my “partner” will start throwing all its high spades, wiping me out, and often losing itself by playing a king before the ace has been revealed. In a normal game, I might be able to pick up a couple of tricks before the other players break. One time, this exact scenario happened and I assumed the AI had also run out of the suit. Nope. Once all the spades were exhausted, out pops a 5 of hearts. The opposing AIs seem to understand this premise just fine. I’ve learned to cut my bid as a result. The AI is also streaky in its bidding, going through stretches where it will do things like bid 3 or 4 and get zero, with nothing in its hand to justify the bid. Other times it will rake in hand bags in bunches. Restarting the app is the quickest way to get it back on track.

I love the game play on this app. I don’t pay to play free games on my phone, so I understand that seeing ads will be part of my experience. Unfortunately, they play ads in between hands (during rated games) that either can’t be exited or take so long to play that you get booted from the game. This is unbelievably frustrating. On average, I get booted once every 15 games or so. After working my way up over 2300 rating, it has become unacceptable to get booted from important games. I will also say the amount of angry players that act like they’ve never busted or got a bag in their life is ridiculous. There should be a 100 point rating deduction for players that: 1. Bid nil and lead with an ace 2. Bid nil with the ace of spades or 3. Intentionally overbid by four or more books than you get. Salty players should be penalized. If not for these two issues, it would be an easy five star rating. Not sure how much longer I will play this game without correcting them.

the game itself is great and addicting but it gets very aggravating because the partners in solo mode are absolute idiots. I bid nil and invariable my partner leads a two or four. the opponents bid nil, and my partner plays his highest cards. he plays a higher card or overtrumps my tricks when he plays last and then we don't make our bid because he has used up his good cards to take tricks I would have won. he always plays his highest trump the first chance he gets, even when he is the last player and a low trump would win the trick. doesn't matter if you configure your partner conservative, regular, or aggressive--they don't know how to play the game! UPDATE: This game gets NO stars! Rather than improving the AI partners, they get worse and worse. They have no idea how to bid--often bid 1 with 2-3 aces--and seem to think the goal of the game is to get as many bags as possible. They wait until the other team makes it's bid, then grab as many extra tricks as possible. Can't make it through a whole game without losing at least 100 points for 10 bags. I'm so aggravated by the poor play, this app will be uninstalled as soon as this review appears.

I don't play multiplayer. I just play the computer. And I'm a bit thrown at how well the opponent AI plays yet my partner is a complete moron. If I set my partner to conservative it regularly underbids and we accumulate bags quickly. If I set my partner to normal it regularly overbids and can't catch its bid. In either case when our bid is met it won't throw off to force the other team to catch bags. The worst is it's behavior when I bid nil. I just played a game where I bid blind nil in a desperate attempt to win the game and I watched the cards very carefully. We were just a few tricks into the hand when my partner led with a 7 of diamonds and set me as I had an 8 as my lowest. I had already played a lower diamond in response to my opponent and my partner covered it. If my partner had no other diamonds it should have played a higher card in another suit (which it had). But just a few tricks later it played both a 10 and Jack of diamonds. If I played like that in real games I would never find a partner that would want to play with me. It's still the best one out there so far but it doesn't set a very high bar.

From what I’ve seen this is the best spades app as far as visually and game play but there are just some really bad ones out there. What kills me about this app is there is no real accountability for players conduct. Most people are good but there are some that are just terrible and if you quit you get punished like children. You should be able to have a “friends list” and be able to play with or against those friends. You should be able to choose who you want to play with or against by looking at stats such as how many quits they have and their ranking. Also the ranked game has only one type of game, first to 250 and no double nils, you can’t freely chat, only has stupid phrases to choose from that don’t make sense. MSN Zone website did it best. Unfortunately that is no longer around, but please find out what they did and try to duplicate. The app would be so much better. I’ll be back in 24 hours after my punishment is over because I quit after my opponent kept bidding 13 and wasting my time, once again.

I downloaded this app less than 24 hours ago and will be uninstalling. My partner and I were winning and there was a racist jerk on the team who became upset he was losing. He than began to tabletalk actually telling his partner what to play and harassing me. I clicked on his profile trying to report the issue and/or block the player and there was not an option to do either. I emailed the developer detailing the experience and suggesting the option be added to the app to report, block players etc. I received a response from the developer whose name is Jason. His response consisted of thanking me for emailing about the AI of the game and that he was sorry I had a bad experience with the "AI". My email had nothing at all to do with the AI of the app. It seems like he just clicked a random auto response and used it to reply to me without even taking the time to read the actual email I sent. I know that developers cannot control actions of other players but they do have control of the level of appreciation(or lack thereof) that they show their supporters. This has been a terrible experience and I refuse to support an app(rather free or not) whose developers show no appreciation or concern for their users.

I’ve tried the single and multiplayer games multiple times. On single player, the AI is terrible. It constantly leads with spades that more often than not results in the opponent “running spades” and eliminating my ability to cut. Why is it programmed to lead with spades EVERY TIME if all the AI has are low level spades or only a couple? Also, when the opponent goes nil... the AI partner never tries to set them. There have been a few times that I’ve set it up to where the opponent has to play a high card in a suit just to have the AI cut the book. I’ve played spades a long time. There are few people that I know that make nil such a big part of the rules. Where are the blind 6, 10 for 200, 4 book minimum bid, and jokers as wild cards options? Those are bigger displays of skills than the nil... which is just trying to go lower than the cards played. On multiplayer, not sure what you can do but it’s annoying to play with folks that stall/take too long to play. Either be in a position to devote your attention to playing or don’t play.

I have played countless games, as I enjoy spades, so if you are entertained this could work for you. But the intelligence of the other players is poor, especially when I bid nil. I have countless times where my partner plays a high spade to win a trick that was not needed and is then left with a low spade (or no spade) to cover me. In addition, I am fully convinced that the program just wants the game to continue on to show more ads. The computer will often bid nil when it has over 400 points, and it is way to easy to bust that nil than earlier bid nils. My partner will often bid just enough to get us to 490 so the bags add up and potentially lose the game (but get another 2-3 hands of ads to watch). I don’t even worry if I get down by 400 points, as I believe the program wants to prolong the ads. I have come back several times from that far down (especially after my unintelligent partner can’t properly cover a blind nil), it’s all fun but I can’t play this any longer knowing that it’s just manipulating for increased ads.