Last updated on December 11th, 2025 at 03:11 pm
K9 Shanghai Rum: Phase Rummy – Strategy Game Review
K9 Shanghai Rum: Phase Rummy is a Strategy/Card/Education game from William Hamshire, first launched in 18th March 2020.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 359+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes K9 Shanghai Rum: Phase Rummy Stand Out
Shanghai Rummy, aka California Rummy is a form of contract rummy where you play 7 hands (or phases.) You try to play all your cards and get the lowest score.
K9 Shanghai Rum is a puppy-themed version where you play against 3 AI opponents.
The multiplayer feature allows you to play a 4 player game with any mix of friends and AI bots.
To measure your progress, you will be training a puppy which will advance through its lessons as you learn Shanghai Rummy. Puppy raising tips come from 16 years of service-dog training experience.
This is a free, fun, table card game in the rummy family similar to Gin Rummy.
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, K9 Shanghai Rum: Phase Rummy is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 10th May 2025
Recent improvements include:
Improve responsiveness
Download & Availability
K9 Shanghai Rum: Phase Rummy is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get K9 Shanghai Rum: Phase Rummy on App Store
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:
We have deleted and reloaded this app 2 times and it continues to do the same thing. It keeps jumping on the page and that gets annoying to the eyes. Can this be fixed. THANKS.
We love this rummy game and play on our iPhone often, but really dislike the font change made in March 2025, makes cards really hard to see. Prior font was better.
Ive had this game for several years and loved it but since this last 2 updates the game has turned awful. Lags and crashes at the end of the round :( if its not broke why mess with it in the 1st place.
New font is blurry. Hard on the eyes. Makes game difficult to see.
It would be great if this game offered more hands. In the OG Game there are 9 hands.
We play this game quite often and we really do like it, however our complaint is that we very seldom get any wild cards and the opponents get quite a few. We dont know how you determine what player gets what cards but it would be nice to get a fair share. Thank you for listening.
Its a fun game. Wish the graphics were better but overall solid.
Often it gets stuck and nothing seems to fix it but deleting the app and reinstalling it. Right now it wont sort so we can meld.
There are a couple kinks. Game didnt recognize when we ran out of cards and won the hand. Giving it to next player. Also when arranging cards to meld, game failed to recognize that we had correct cards. Kept moving on to next player. Very frustrating as it takes a lot of time to get correct cards.
Really like this game! The only change that needs to be made is being able to go out when your discard plays. Should have to play it and float until you draw a card that doesnt play and you can discard it. Other than that its perfect.
Please add the option to disable wild cards, and make it so you can drag the cards in order instead of tapping. Even at the lowest setting the AI players are too aggressive with their buys.
Fun game but you are limited in what you are allowed to lay down. Once you make board, you may play on others boards but you are not allowed to put additional sets or runs down. This game limits that. So, it is fun, but limiting. And, what do the dogs have to do with the game? While cute, they are pointless.
This would be a great game if it worked fully. Apologies if we are wrong, but we cannot find instructions how to take a joker from a run that has been played. The rules say that this is possible. But tapping on our card and then tapping on the joker in the run meld does not work. Please advise. These rules arent exactly the rules our family uses. But they are close enough. But we will uninstall the app if we cannot take jokers when the AI can. We would be playing with a handicap.
Fun especially for a dog lover.
We were incredibly happy to find this wonderful game on the Apple App Store today and immediately loaded it up on our iPad 12.9. The graphics are stellar, navigation was almost instantly intuitive, and you are able to configure several settings in the setup screen. Best of all, each round features simple graphics showing you what is required to lay down your cards! A set is three of a kind (any suit) and a run is 4 sequential cards of the same suit. Jokers can be anything, and we promise this game will capture your attention and you will be loving the genius programming that made it possible! Great way to practice your skills for when you are playing for real with friends or relatives. We have not tried the play with friends but enjoy playing versus the computer bots (it is 4 handed because of the demands of showing all those cards on screen. We used to do simple Visual Basic programming, this person likely used JavaScript to do this – (we are guessing) and we have to say kudos – it can NOT have been easy to handle all the variables and still make it look good. Compared to many other card games we have encountered on the web, we found K9 Shanghai Rum to be top-notch and captivating. We highly recommend giving it a whirl. We were sold the instant it loaded up on our iPad for the very first time.
Shanghai Rummy is our favorite card game. So Im very grateful that this app exists. But… The play with friends feature does not work. At all. And the interface for playing with the bots is super clunky. But it allows us to play and hone our skills. We would pay good money for a high quality Shanghai Rummy app.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 3.0.362
- Size: 66.39 MB
- iOS: 12.2 or later
- Languages:
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: William Hamshire
Last updated: 10th May 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Card | Developer: William Hamshire