How to play ClapOut: the complete rules

Everything the table enforces, from the first card turned to the last clap — with tables to check at a glance and a walkthrough of your first game.

By the ClapOut team · Updated 28 September 2026 · 10 min read

ClapOut is a shedding game: match the pile, get rid of your cards, and be the first with an empty hand. If you have played the colour-and-number card game everyone already knows, the core will feel familiar within a minute. Two things will not. The four suits are elements that act on each other, so changing the pile's suit can cost someone a card. And when you are down to your last card, you clap — before anyone catches you.

This page covers every rule the table itself enforces. The optional rules are in House rules, the elements have a guide of their own, and any new word is in the glossary.

The game in one minute

• Two to six players, seven cards each. The player on the dealer's left goes first.
• On your turn, play one card that matches the pile: the same element, or the same number or action. A Prism or a Storm goes on anything.
• Can't play? Draw one. Play it if you can, or keep it and pass.
• You have ten seconds a turn.
• Change the pile's element and it clashes: overpower it and the next player draws one; fizzle and you draw one.
• Three of one element in a row is a Surge: whoever lands the third may shed one more.
• Down to one card? Clap before the next seat acts. Miss it and anyone can catch you: two cards.
• The first empty hand wins the round.

The deck

A ClapOut deck has 108 cards. One hundred belong to the four elements, twenty-five each. The other eight belong to no element at all: they are the wilds.

The elements are the suits: Ember (a flame), Sol (a sun), Tide (a wave) and Dusk (a moon). Every card carries its element's glyph as well as its hue, so you never have to rely on colour alone to tell a Tide from a Dusk.

A card's corner shows its number and glyph, top-left and bottom-right, so it reads either way up. An action card shows its sign with its name beneath; a wild sweeps all four hues around a dark centre. Every back is the ClapOut mark on indigo.

The deal and the first card

The table deals for you: seven cards each, one at a time, clockwise from the dealer's left. The top card of the draw pile is then turned face up to start the discard pile, and the player on the dealer's left plays first — unless that first card says otherwise.

A table seats two to six players. Play runs clockwise until a Rewind turns it around.

Your turn

On your turn you do exactly one of two things.

Play one card onto the pile. It must match the pile's element, or the top card's number or action: a Tide 7 on an Ember 7, a Sol Hush on a Tide Hush. A Prism or a Storm goes on anything.

Draw one card. If the card you drew can be played, you may play it at once, or keep it and pass. If it cannot be played, your turn is over.

Here is the pile with an Ember 7 on top, and four cards you might be holding:

The Ember 2 plays (same element). The Tide 7 plays (same number). The Prism plays (it is wild). The Tide 2 does not — it shares neither the element nor the number.

The pile's element — the active element — is the top card's element or, straight after a wild, the element its player named. One card a turn, and nobody plays out of turn unless the host has switched on Jump-in.

The clock

You have ten seconds a turn: to play or draw, to name an element or a seat, to answer a Storm, or to play or pass a card you drew. The host can make it fifteen, thirty or sixty seconds in the lobby.

If the clock runs out, the table moves for you. It draws you a card (or pays a debt you owe) and passes; it keeps a card you drew rather than playing it; it names the element you hold most of; it picks the nearest seat that still has cards; and it declines a Storm challenge.

The action cards

Five cards do something when they land. Three of them — Hush, Rewind and Toss — belong to an element and match like any other card of it. The other two are wild and go on anything.

A Hush, Rewind or Toss on the pile can be matched by the same action of any element, just as a number is matched by the same number. A Sol Toss goes on a Dusk Toss.

How a debt is paid

A Toss or a Storm is a debt. It is paid when the victim's turn begins, before they can do anything else: they draw the cards, and that turn is over. Under the Stacking house rule, a victim holding the same card may pass the debt on instead, bigger than before.

A Toss or a Storm still lands when it is your last card: the victim draws, and you have gone out. With the Storm challenge house rule on, a Storm can be called as a bluff — see House rules for how that works.

The elements, in brief

There is one line to learn: Tide douses Ember, Ember lights Dusk, Dusk sets Sol, Sol dries Tide. Each element beats one and loses to one. The pairs across the ring — Tide and Dusk, Ember and Sol — are neutral.

A Clash happens only when your card changes the pile's element — a number or action match that brings a different element in. If your element beats the old one, you overpower it and the card's victim (normally the next player) draws one card at once. If it loses, it fizzles and you draw one. The same element, a neutral pair and any wild are nothing.

When the same element lands three times in a row, it is a Surge: whoever landed the third may shed one more number card of that element straight away.

The elements are on by default; the host can switch them off. The full rules, with worked examples, are in The four elements.

The clap and the catch

When a play leaves you with exactly one card, clap — once — before the next seat acts. On a phone, tap CLAP, or, if you have turned the microphone on, clap out loud.

The window. Your clap window opens the moment a play leaves you one card (or a swap or rotation, under the house rules that have them). A draw never opens it. It closes when the next seat acts, by playing or by drawing. Clap inside the window and you are safe.

The race. While your window is open and you have not clapped, any other player who claps first catches you. So clap the moment the card leaves your hand.

The catch. If the window closes and you still have not clapped, you are catchable until your own next action, and anyone can catch you. A catch costs you two cards from the draw pile. A late clap — after the window, but before anyone catches you — makes you safe again. On a phone, a Catch button appears by a seat that can be caught.

A catch costs the catcher nothing, right or wrong, and a catch aimed at a seat that is not catchable is simply ignored. A clap from a player whose own window is open always counts as their own clap, never as a catch.

The bots clap too. Rocket and Sly never forget; Chaos forgets one time in ten and Nana three times in ten. Rocket pounces on anyone catchable, Sly and Chaos catch half the time, and Nana never does. There is more on each of them in Meet the bots.

Going out

The round ends the moment a hand is empty, and whoever shed their last card has won it. If that last card is a Toss or a Storm, it still lands: the victim draws, and then the win is called.

When the pile runs out

If the draw pile empties, the discard pile — all of it except the top card — is shuffled into a new draw pile, and the drawing carries on from there. The top card stays where it is, so the pile's element does not change. In the rare case that even the reshuffled pile cannot cover a draw, you draw what is left and play continues.

The long game and scoring

By default a game is one round with one winner. Under the Long game house rule, the winner of each round scores the cards left in everyone else's hands. The hands are then dealt again, with the deal moving one seat on, and the first player to reach 500 points wins the game — the moment the round's winner gets there.

For example: you go out. Nana is left holding a 7 and a Storm (57 points), Rocket a Hush and a 2 (22), and Sly a Prism (50). You score 129.

Your first game

Here is how the opening few turns of a real game might go. You are playing three bots — Nana, Rocket and Sly, in that order round the table — and you play first. Your seven cards:

Turn 1. The first card turned is a Dusk 4. You have four legal plays. The Dusk 9 matches the element, and nothing happens. The Sol 4 matches the number, but Dusk sets Sol, so it would fizzle and you would draw a card. The Prism is always legal, but it is your escape card; save it. The Ember 4 matches the number, and Ember lights Dusk — a Kindle. You play it, and Nana draws a card at once.

Turns 2 and 3. Nana plays an Ember 6. Rocket plays an Ember 1 — the third Ember in a row, so it is a Surge, and Rocket immediately sheds an Ember 8 on top as a bonus.

Turn 4. Sly matches the 8 with a Tide 8. Tide douses Ember — a Douse — and the victim is the next seat: you. You draw one card.

Turn 5. The pile is Tide now, so your Tide 2 plays safely: same element, no clash.

A few laps later you are down to two cards: the Prism and the Tide 8, with a Sol 5 on the pile. You play the Prism and name Tide. That leaves you one card, so tap CLAP straight away, before Nana acts. If you forget, Rocket will almost certainly catch you, and that is two more cards. When your turn comes round again, if the pile is still Tide or has an 8 on top, the Tide 8 takes you out and the round is yours.