Playing Cards

Qwitch is actually the fifth card game to get a Major FUN Award. However many more card games get the Major FUN Award, the one card game to which I will never be able to play sufficient homage is your basic, traditions, standard deck of playing cards. It is amazing how much play value can be found in so small a package. The Card Games Website, for example, lists approximately 566 different card games. Not including solitaire. Tom Warfield, author of the amazingly extensive and free collection of solitaire games called Pretty Good Solitaire, lists over 300.

Speaking of card games, and playing cards in general, the website of the International Playing-Card Society includes a thankfully brief, but concise History of Playing-Cards, according to which "earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377" which might help to explain why there are so many card games.

Not to mention design. Well, all right, let's mention it. Here's a page with a good overview of the art of playing card design. As revealed by the Playing Card Review site, there are still efforts underway to redesign the deck. One example shown is this one called "The Devil's Picturebook" - a project of the Stichting Installatie Collectief, a collaboration between four artists in Holland.

Then there's the shape question, like this round deck of "Mars Cards" by NASA. I found these on Newt's Playing Card Superstore. Apparently, round cards have been in use for centuries. There's an Indian circular card set called Ganjifa with twelve suits of ten cards each.Andy's Playing Cards (hosted by Tripod, so you'll have to endure the pop-ups) has a good page on the history and symbology of this fascinating deck. Though I've not yet had a chance to play with a round deck, it's pretty evident that they'd be nice to hold, easy to arrange, and maybe especially fun to throw.