Sarhny (صارحني) Games: Play With Friends, Then Be Honest

Online board games are easy to find; playing them with people who know you is the hard part. Sarhny (صارحني) started somewhere else entirely: as a place where friends send each other anonymous, honest messages. Its games grew out of that. The six games in the app's Arena are built around the people who already know you, and in several of them the prize for winning is not a trophy but a question your opponent has to answer truthfully. This guide walks through every game, how to invite friends, and why mixing play with honesty works better than it sounds.

What is the Arena?

Inside the Sarhny app on iOS and Android there is a tab called “Arena”. It holds six games: My Farm, Showdown (rock paper scissors), Tic-Tac-Toe, Ludo, Carrom and Sarhny Blocks. Each has its own page on our Sarhny games hub with the full rules, but here is the short version of what makes each one worth opening.

The six games at a glance

1. My Farm — the one you come back to every day

My Farmis the newest and deepest game in the Arena. You pick a companion animal (a horse, an oryx, a rabbit or a fennec to start), name it, and care for it daily so it grows through five stages, from young to legendary. Around it you plant, water and harvest crops, fill village orders, and unlock workshops as your farm levels up. The farm lives on Sarhny's servers, so time passes for real: crops grow while you are away, and thirsty ones wither if you forget them.

The social part is what sets it apart. The “Valley” shows the farms of people you follow on Sarhny, so you can visit to water their crops, pet their companion, clear pests or leave a gift. You decide who may visit your farm and you can see a 30-day log of who came by. Couples and close friends can also grow a shared Heart Garden together. And your activity in the rest of Sarhny feeds the farm: messages you receive turn into rain, and answers you publish turn into feed, delivered to the farm mailbox with daily caps.

2. Showdown — rock paper scissors with a consequence

Showdowntakes the oldest hand game there is and adds a twist. Every round you pick a hand and also guess your opponent's hand. Winning the hand scores a point and a correct guess scores another, and the first player to five points wins. Then the winner writes a question and the loser answers it honestly. Before the match you choose the mood of the questions: light, bold or funny.

3. Tic-Tac-Toe — three in a row, then one honest answer

Tic-Tac-Toe is the classic 3×3 board, one game per match, X moves first. Win and you get to ask a question; a draw means nobody asks. Against the computer, the opponent adapts across five levels, and at the top level it plays perfectly, so a draw is the best you can do.

4. Ludo — Classic rules or the Magic Arena

Ludo comes in two rule sets. Classic follows the rules you grew up with: a 6 to bring a token out, an extra roll for a 6, a capture or reaching home, and eight safe star squares. Magic Arena adds mana and skills such as Shield, Freeze and Cosmic Swap, plus mystery boxes and an arena event every eight turns. You can play one-on-one, two-versus-two in teams, four players each for themselves, against the computer, or by passing one phone around.

5. Carrom — real physics and official-style rules

Carrom is built on a physics engine, so the striker, the coins and the rebounds behave like a real board. The Classic mode is based on ICF rules, including covering the queen and striker fouls. Play online, invite a friend, play the computer at easy, medium or pro, or pass the phone between two or four players. Online quick matches end with the winner asking the loser a question.

6. Sarhny Blocks — a puzzle you can race a friend at

Sarhny Blocks is a block puzzle on an 8×8 board: place three pieces at a time, clear full rows and columns, and keep a combo chain going. Solo, you chase your best score. In Friend challenge, you and your opponent get the exact same sequence of pieces and race to a target score, so the better player wins, not the luckier one.

How to play with your friends

Every multiplayer game in the Arena uses the same invite system, so once you know it you know it everywhere:

1. Open a game and tap “Invite a friend”.
2. The app creates a six-character code that stays valid for 30 minutes.
3. Either notify up to 10 of your followers directly, or share the link sarhny.com/play/ followed by the code in any chat.
4. Your friend opens the Arena, taps “I have a code” and enters it, or simply taps the link and lands in the game.

If nobody is around, the online quick match finds a real opponent, and random online matches in Showdown and Tic-Tac-Toe never show either player's name or photo. Several modes also work offline: playing the computer in Showdown, Tic-Tac-Toe, Ludo, Carrom and Blocks, and same-phone play in Ludo, Carrom and Blocks.

“Winner asks”: why a game ends with a question

This is the idea that ties the games back to what Sarhny is about. In Showdown, Tic-Tac-Toe and online Carrom, the match does not just end with a score. The winner gets a short window to write a question (or one is picked from a question bank), and the loser gets time to answer it. The loser has one question swap if the question does not suit them, and may abstain by watching a short ad, within a daily limit. The answer appears only to the two players in the post-match reveal; it is never posted to a profile or an inbox.

That small rule changes the mood of a game. Losing stops being only frustrating and becomes a little exciting, because you are about to say something real. Winning becomes a chance to ask the thing you have always wondered about. Played between friends, a ten-minute match can turn into a surprisingly honest conversation.

Where the games meet anonymous honesty

Games and anonymous messages are two sides of the same habit: saying what you actually think, with a little protection around it. In a game the protection is the rule (“I lost, so I have to answer”). In an anonymous message the protection is that nobody knows who wrote it. Sarhny offers both:

• Your personal link lets friends send you anonymous messages, which you can answer and publish if you want to.
• Mirrors let you ask one question and collect anonymous answers from everyone you share it with.
• The Arena turns the same honesty into play, with the people you follow and message every day.

The connection runs both ways. The people who already message you are the easiest opponents to invite, and a good post-match question is often a great anonymous question too. If you want ideas, our guide on honest questions to ask friends works just as well at the end of a Ludo match as it does in a mirror.

Which game should you start with?

• Five minutes and a friend nearby: Showdown or Tic-Tac-Toe. Quick, and the question at the end is the fun part.
• A group chat that wants to play together: Ludo, with a four-player table or two-versus-two teams.
• You like skill over luck: Carrom, or a Blocks Friend challenge with identical pieces.
• You want something to return to daily: My Farm, and visit the farms of people you follow.

Fair play and leaderboards

Each competitive game has a “Top players” board that ranks the top 50 players by wins (Blocks by best score) and shows your own rank. Turns are timed (15 seconds in Ludo, 30 seconds per Carrom shot), and in online Ludo a player who keeps missing turns or stays disconnected is counted as having left, so the table keeps moving for everyone else. In Showdown and Tic-Tac-Toe, post-match questions and answers pass through Sarhny's abuse filter, and players who break the rules collect strikes.

Getting started

Install the Sarhny app, sign in, and open the Arena tab. Pick one game, invite one friend, and agree before you start that the loser answers honestly. You can read the rules of every game first on the games hub, or create your Sarhny account and start with the game that fits your evening.