Last updated on February 4th, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Rook – Entertainment Game Review
Rook is a Entertainment/Casino/Card game from fishdog.net, LLC, first launched in 6th April 2018.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 6,564+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Rook Stand Out
Rook is a popular trick-taking card game using a special card deck numbered from 5 to 14 (and optionally 1) in 4 suit colors, plus a Rook card. In this app, the Rook card is a castle chess piece and the cards are designed to be color-blind friendly.
Dealing: Deal passes around table for each hand, to the left. Dealer deals 9 cards to each player, and 5 cards to the widow in the middle of the table.
Bidding: Players bid for the right to name the trump suit. The player to the left of the dealer starts the bidding at 70 (or passes), and bidding proceeds to the left, usually in 5 point increments. A player that passes is out of the bidding for that hand.
Widow, Naming Trump: The high bidder collects the 5 widow cards (which are shown to all players), names a trump suit for the hand, and discards 5 cards from her hand (not shown to the other players). The 5 discards can include point cards which will, depending on your settings, go to either the high bidder or the winner of the last trick.
Tricks: The dealer (or the high bidder, you can change this) leads the first trick. Play proceeds to the left until all 4 players have played one card. Players follow suit unless they are out of that suit (or play the Rook card to win a trick with lots of points). If a player cannot follow suit, any card may be played. If there were no trump cards played on a trick, high card in the lead suit wins the trick. If trump cards were played on the trick, the highest trump card wins the trick. The trick winner pulls in the cards (adds them to his won tricks pile), and leads the next trick. The Rook card is the highest card of the trump suit. The ranking of cards from high to low is Rook-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5.
Hand results: Both teams count the points from their won tricks piles: Rook card is worth 20; 14 and 10 cards are worth 10 each; 5 cards are worth 5. The other cards count nothing. If the bidding team did not score enough points to cover its bid, its score decreases by the bid amount.
Winning: First team to 300 points (or to be 300 points ahead) wins the game.
A paid Rook Gold app with no ads is also available on the App Store.
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Rook is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 30th September 2025
Recent improvements include:
Support for new devices. Minor bug fixes.
Download & Availability
Rook is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Love this game especially the fact you dont need wifi. Wish it would update or have a newer version as long as wifi isnt needed. Love it!! Our go to game.
This is the same game that we grew up playing in Western Kentucky with the exception of adding the red one as the largest Trump or 30 points. We wish they would update this game and add that option of adding the red one or the red four to add 30 more points to the hand.
We love to play ROOK this isnt as fun as the real card game but its close.
This is a great game! However it would be nice to invite partners.
We have played ROOK for years with human beings – we found this App and it is the BEST APP EVER for us – we have deleted several game apps that have become BORING after finding this ROOK APP !!! Thank You to all of you who are responsible making this happen.
We love that this game is challenging. To learn, the computer helps you play several rounds until you are confident. We really like that you play several games before a commercial which is very short and then you play several games again. This is a well designed game.
This was a family favorite. We would stay up til all hours playing. Thank you.
Great game from childhood. Has a few glitches in the program but after you play for awhile you know what card is coming next. Irritating is when partner leads with a trump when trump color is evenly dealt among all players. Also, it is crazy when an apposing player plays a 13 on a 14 when they have a 5 to sacrifice and gamble on taking more points to set the apposing team with their 13. Our husband and we both play this game daily and will continue. Which we could play as opponents.
We love this game!! We play it when we get anxiety and start feeling anxious and it always helps calm us down.
This is a great app if you want to improve your Rook skills. You have the option to replay each hand so if you go set replay and see if you can make the hand. We wish there was an app for playing Rook with real people.
Needs to play online with friends and have little rook aka 4 card.
It is not distributed among all the players equally.
Did you know you can renege with the rook? You can lay rook on any trick even if you have cards in the off suit that was led. Might want to fix that. Also, instead of a way to cheat and view the other players cards, maybe we could see what has already been played.
We like the game but when the ai has a good hand the get everything always all the high cards and bosses in outher colors its ridiculous.
We love this game, but the bots are programmed to play stupid. They pull their partners trump when its clear we are the only two who have trump, they do t take points when they can (example: we led, opponent played a 10, partner bit could have beat it with an 11 but played a 9) they dont give points when they should, its an okay game to kill time.. But if you are at all competitive, this game will just make you angry.
Gabe is pretty fun, but definitely rigged to allow the computer team to win. On average, our team got the rook card less than 25% of the time. Its almost impossible to win when the cards youre dealt are disproportionately skewed to allow the computer to win.
The game is set up so your partner bids you up. That should not happen. If we bid, 95% of the time our partner should pass. Fix this and it would get 5 stars.
When we first downloaded this game, we were addicted to it. But it didn't take long before we began to notice how biased it was. Us(south) and our partner (north) are playing against east and west. East and west get the trump and a lot of one color cards 6 times out of 10. If we get the rook it's usually with about 4 of the same color. We know they are only computers, but they certainly are not set up fair. Who wants to play a game when the opposing team gets the rook and all the high cards almost all the time. We loved this game but now will probably delete it because it's no fun anymore.
We love the game of Rook and for the most part this is a good game. But the reason for the 2 stars is that your partner will bid a high amount and not have the rook or the 14 or any other cards to support the bid. No one who plays in real life would do such a stupid thing. It makes us want to throw the phone!! We all push bids but you would not bid 90 without the rook and high cards in your suit.
Back in the day, friends and we would get together and play Rook. Today, we cant seem to find 4 players in shuffling the deck and letting the bird fly. This app is perfect for those days that we want our fix. Really enjoy the different options – can choose between when rook can be played or whether or not we want to use 1s. Thank you.
Great game from childhood. Has a few glitches in the program but after you play for awhile you know what card is coming next. Irritating is when partner leads with a trump when trump color is evenly dealt among all players. Also, it is crazy when an apposing player plays a 13 on a 14 when they have a 5 to sacrifice and gamble on taking more points to set the apposing team with their 13. Our husband and we both play this game daily and will continue. Which we could play as opponents.
Love, love playing this game! Only thing missing is conversation with the players.
Playing this game brings back all the memories of playing this with our Mom.
Why do we have to deal with all these stupid ads for other games. If we wanted another game we would download them.
We like playing rook but the way the partner plays in this game is terrible. He gets us set all the time. We have never played with a live partner that plays this bad. Would be nice if we could customize the players actions or they at least emulated how an actual person plays the game. Its very frustrating to lose when you shouldnt and would never have in an actual game. The partner played Yellow when he had only 4 and the highest card was a 12, he has 4 purple with 14, 13, 12 and 9. Bid way up and had nothing to account for bidding so high. Terrible.
More options than the pay version. We would like better player tips, or better explanations anyway. But real fun.
Great game very similar to ROOK.
We think its a pretty good game but we have a game called to a life and we do not recommend it makes you spend 99$ on the whole game which is silly but we definitely recommend this game.
If you love rook, you will love this app.
Rook is one of our favorite games. Ive plYes this particular app for a while. We never paid close attention. Recently we noticed the AI cutting the deck with the rook when we play a 14 (red) the AI cuts with a rook card (yellow) after the AI took the bus the next card played from the same character that played a record card was a 13 (red). After paying attention we notified this happens often.
We and our wife have played the game of Rook for decades. We have enjoyed playing the game of Rook on our mobile phones.
We love playing Rook. This game is fun and addictive. Have you considered making an online version where you can play with live partners.
Would be The Perfect App if you could play with others.
Nicely done implementation of Rook. Options cover most of the rules variations that are played. Game play is clear and quick. Thanks for doing this really takes us back to family Rook night.
We started playing Rook with our dad as a kid. It was the main game in our town. Even had a mens restaurant called the Rook Room with ham burgers, hot dogs, etc with pool tables and tables to play Rook. Women were discouraged from going in there. Said to have the best hamburgers in town, our sister would get dad to go in and buy them. Today it is the best restaurant in town, still called the Rook Room. No they dont play rook there anymore but food is great.
Great options to configure the game the way youre used to playing.
Great Rook games. The app is better than half our family members :).
We love rook and being away from home this is a great way to play! Our only gripe is your partners AI plays like its their first time everytime while the opponents AI plays decently smart but predictable.
There are some odd things that happen with the AI partner, but the one that irritates us most is when the score is 480 to a score where the opponent has a score low enough that it impossible to win if we have the bird and the partner bids. The last game the score was 480 to 245. Our partner bid 140 and the other team scored 65 points, thereby setting us and we eventually lost the game. But we love this game.
This works well but need to be able to set how many cards you win in the bid. 5 is way too many. Should be able to set it as 1-5 for different types of play.
Really enjoy this game however the opponents occasionally renig by trumping and not following suit. Having to follow suit when possible is the basic premise of the game. Its hard to win when the opponents dont have to follow the rules. Please fix this flaw.
This game is fun, however, it would be nice to be able to choose a automated partner that has common sense playing ability. The automated opposing team has this but the partner youre always stuck with does not. Its infuriating. Ive been playing rook our whole life. The mistakes the automated partner makes are that of someone just learning the game.
Fun game but somethings off on your settings. We have led one color and another computer player plays trumps then leads back with the same color they just trumped! We replayed the game a few times and it does the same thing each time. Yeah, its a problem and makes us think your game has other cheats like changing cards other players have as you play. Deleting.
A Trump card played and then the Rook plays out of turn. Example Red played then Bird next Round the one that played the Bird plays the Red that they should have played instead of the Bird. You dont play the Bird just when you want too or else everyone should have that optionplease correct your game! Thanks.
We have loved this game for a long time, although it still needs a Red 1 option. Unfortunately the last update is giving the rook to the opposite team at an extremely high rate. Even when playing perfectly its making the game nearly unplayable.
The algorithm seems to be off on this game. Your partner has no insight as to what to play. Your partner bids against you 2-3 times just because they have the bird. Crazy. We can get really aggravated at our partner and in real life we would never play with them! Work on this please.
The cards are actual random which is very refreshing to see in a phone game. No rigging it to keep you addicted. We wish you could adjust the settings more. It would be nice to be able to play with the full deck instead of just 5-14 and also to play without the rook card and a four-card kitty instead. Also to be able to start the bidding lower. Overall awesome game.
Your opponent can cheat sometimes and play a Trump even though they can follow suit.
The size of the new update is awful, fix it.
This is a good rook game. It is fun. But wish it had more options to change the rules of the game. In our state, and the 4 surrounding states, people play without the Rook at all. And you have to call the color of trumps before you pick up the widow. Also you cannot discard counters. And lastly, if you do discard trumps, you have to turn them up so everyone can see them. These rules add a lot of dimension to the game and make it a lot more interesting and challenging for those who need a little more challenge. If these options were available, this would definitely be a 5 star game and a lot more people would download and play it. People would even pay money for these added options.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 26.0.0
- Size: 31.98 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, HI, ES, SV, TR
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: fishdog.net, LLC
Last updated: 30th September 2025 | Genre: Entertainment, Casino | Developer: fishdog.net, LLC