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Ride the Bus is a guessing game played with one standard deck. On your turn you answer four questions in a row, each one settled by flipping the next card off the top: red or black, then higher or lower, then inside or outside, then the suit. Every right answer banks a point and moves you along. One wrong answer ends your turn.
The version above is the family friendly one. Play it against the computer, or pass one device around a group of up to eight.
Score the most points before the deck runs out.
A complete turn. Black on the 4 of clubs, higher on the jack, inside on the 8, then diamonds. All four right is worth 5 points.
Every correct answer banks its points and moves you to the next question. One wrong answer ends your turn on the spot and play passes to the next person.
Clear all four and the turn stays with you. You get four fresh questions and keep everything already banked, and you carry on until you finally miss.
Ace is low and king is high. On an ace, "higher" is close to a sure thing. On a king, "lower" is. Everything in between is a real decision.
One deck is one game. When the cards run out, the round in progress is played to the end so everybody has had the same number of turns, and the highest score wins.
Finishing that last round can take more cards than are left, so a fresh deck is shuffled in rather than cutting anyone off mid-question. That is why a card you have already seen can turn up again near the end. It will never appear twice in the same four.
This is the question people get stuck on, and it is the one worth reading twice.
By your third question you are holding two cards. Ignore their suits and look only at their ranks. Those two ranks are your boundaries. The question is whether the next card lands between them or not.
Holding a 6 and a queen. Inside means 7, 8, 9, 10 or jack. Outside means ace through 5, or a king. And another 6 or another queen lands exactly on the edge, which is the case worth knowing about.
Our rule: a card landing exactly on one of your two cards counts for whichever side you called. In the example above, another queen wins whether you said inside or outside, you take the point, and your turn carries on.
This is the case that trips everyone up, because a card sitting on the boundary is honestly neither in nor out. Groups settle it three different ways:
Any of the three is a fine way to play. Just agree which one before you start.
Outside, usually. Since a boundary card wins either way, the decision comes down to the ranks strictly between your two cards against the ranks beyond them. Inside is only the better call when your cards are seven or more ranks apart. Two cards close together, such as a 7 and a 9, make outside close to a lock.
It is closer than it sounds, though. With a 5 and a jack you win on 8 ranks calling outside and 7 calling inside, so the count is worth doing every time.
Two players works with no changes to the rules. You take turns answering the four questions, and the turn passes the moment somebody gets one wrong. Whoever has the most points when the deck runs out wins.
Two is arguably the sharpest way to play, because turns come back around fast and you watch every card your opponent gets. In a bigger group you can wait a while between goes.
You can play two-player above in either mode: pick Vs CPU to play the computer, or Group in Person and pass the device back and forth.
The four questions are the first phase of a longer traditional game. The version above plays that first phase only, but here is how the full thing works and where the name comes from.
Everyone answers the same four questions in turn. In the full game, the cards you are dealt during this phase stay face up in front of you, so you finish the phase holding a small hand of cards.
The dealer lays out a pyramid of face-down cards: five along the bottom row, then four, then three, then two, then one at the top. Rows are flipped one at a time from the bottom up, and each row is worth more than the row beneath it.
When a flipped card matches the rank of a card in your hand, you can lay that card down on the pyramid and hand out a penalty worth that row's value. So phase one punished you by giving you cards, and phase two is your chance to get rid of them.
Whoever is left holding the most cards after the pyramid is the loser, and they have to ride the bus. That means answering the four questions again on their own, and starting over from question one every time they miss, until they get all four in a row.
That is where the name comes from. Since clearing all four happens on roughly one turn in fourteen, riding the bus can take a long and very public while, which is the entire point.
These are measured, not estimated. We simulated more than 30,000 turns against the game above, always taking the mathematically better side.
| Question | Chance of getting it right |
|---|---|
| Red or black | 50% |
| Higher or lower | about 72% |
| Inside or outside | about 77% |
| The suit | about 26% |
| All four in a row | about 7%, or one turn in 14 |
The suit is what ends most turns. Three quarters of the players who reach that last question fall at it, which is why it is worth double.
The practical advice is short. Guess the bigger side on questions two and three, since taking the better half is worth about twenty points of accuracy over guessing blind. On the suit, nothing helps much, though a suit you have not already seen this turn is very slightly likelier than one you have.
Two is the minimum and there is no real maximum. The version above takes up to eight on one device, and you can add players in the middle of a game.
Shuffle one standard 52-card deck and pick who goes first. There is nothing else to deal. Cards come off the top one at a time as each question is answered.
On higher or lower, a matching rank loses. On inside or outside, landing exactly on one of your two cards counts for either call, so you win whichever side you picked.
Low in this version, so the order runs ace, 2, 3, up to king. Some groups play ace high. It only matters on the higher or lower question, so agree before you start.
About 7%, or one turn in 14, playing sensibly.
No. It is a social card game, not a table game you will find in a casino. There is no house, no wager and no dealer edge. The closest casino relative is the old carnival game of chasing a higher or lower card, but Ride the Bus itself is a party game.
From the last phase of the traditional game, where the player left holding the most cards has to answer the four questions over and over until they clear all four.
Almost every group plays this slightly differently. None of these are wrong, they just need agreeing up front.