My Favourite Card Games.

I talk a lot about video games…wait, let me rephrase that, I talk a LOT about video games, but sometimes I feel the need to play a game that’s a bit more tactile, I want something I can hold in my hand and feel like I have a degree of skill in handling. That’s why I love card games, nothing feels better than shuffling some cards without them flying everywhere and then dealing them out speedily and accurately.

Here are a few of my favourites.

Of course I’ll get the obvious one out of the way quickly; I talk about Magic: The Gathering a lot in these articles as well, but there’s a reason for that. I think the game is brilliant, as it’s a trading card game there are thousands of cards out there that you could potentially put in a deck. I find that wonderful that even if you decide to base your deck on someone else’s there will be tiny differences between them which completely changes the way your deck plays compared to the guy you took the idea from. Sure the rules take a while to get used to, the ‘stack’ mechanic can make cards interact with each other in ways you didn’t expect (but I think magic players will agree that the game is much simpler because of it), some of the keywords on cards take a little while to remember exactly how they affect your creatures and I still keep trying to destroy a blocker with an instant after it’s been announced, thinking that the damage will go through to the player (but it doesn’t, it’s been blocked). Yet I think this game is fantastic, a little hard for newbies to get used to but well worth the effort.

Now I said that the rules of Magic: The Gathering were confusing, however this next game has been criticised for having the most confusing rules in a card game ever. Game of Thrones: The Card Game is actually a lot easier than you’d first believe; one, the stages that make up a turn are listed on a card that represents your house, two, it’s basically just a game of Planeschase in MTG. There are some things that I find strange but that’s just because I’m not used to the game, such as different decks for different houses (Which I believe is an attempt to not accidentally give one player an overpowered deck with cards that don’t fit well in the lore), and how later on in the game it is so easy to have a board that’s chock-a-block with cards. Whether you believe the stigma or not this game is definitely worth playing at least once.

The final two games I’d like to talk about are nowhere near as huge and serious as the first two, these are stupid little games designed to make you laugh and the first is Gloom.

In Gloom, the objective is to make your family have the worst lives ever and kill them first; once a family is dead, the game is over. Why do I love this game? Because it’s all about the story you tell about your family. You have cards that you put on different family members which give negative points to them, when they die you can count these negative points towards your total score, let’s say you played a card that said someone was “Driven to Drink” and then wanted to play a card that said they were “Chastised by the Church”, the fun element of the game is telling the story of how one event let to the other. This game is so fun, though can leave the less creative players or players that aren’t confident with public speaking, a little stranded. Once you get into a flow however, the game soon picks up and is incredibly fun to get involved with. It can even make a great spectator sport.

The last game I’ll talk about is Fluxx, a really simple game. All each player needs to do is draw a card and then play a card. Simple right? Well yes and no. Cards played will change the game and how it’s played, cards will either denote what must be done to win the game; what the rules of the game are; what you have on the table to help you win; what you have on the table to stop you from winning or they may just be a cute one time action that can seriously brighten or darken someone’s day. That’s all that can really be said about Fluxx, it does require a bit of reading as some cards can make you do things you hadn’t thought about doing and it can get a bit overwhelming when you have ten new rules on the table, all of which need to be enforced. All in all it’s a really fun game that doesn’t require a lot of explaining in the early stages and because everyone learns new rules together it makes the group feel like they are on a level playing field even if it’s your first time playing the game.

I love card games, board games and video games, I just sometimes feel that card games are forgotten about a lot, and they shouldn’t be. Most are pocket sized so you can take them anywhere, they tend not to need a power source and they can sometimes be the most rewarding to play, especially when you get a great social experience from them. So let us take a moment to pay our respects to the humble card game, to thank it for being simple yet effective and for bringing people closer and closer with every game. Sometimes I wish I were more like a card game, creating friends and relationships in places where there were none or they were weak.

I’ll see you after dealing.