Lably
Skip to content

Dedicated deck card game

  • 2 min read
  • 2 chapters

Explore on Lably

ToursExplore Lably’s 3D tours

Unranked cards

By the late eighteenth century, educational packs of cards were being printed without suits or ranks, such as The Elements of Astronomy and Geography Explained, published by John Wallis in 1795. These served as teaching aids rather than being playable games. Charles Hodges' 1828 game Astrophilogeon was a deck of 60 cards showing 30 constellations and 30 terrestrial maps, with which players could play a game attempting to obtain corresponding pairs.

An early 20th century dedicated deck card game was Touring, published in 1906, and inspiring Mille Bornes in 1954.

Play typically bears some resemblance to traditional card games of the Eights family including Mau Mau from which Uno may have been developed, as well as games of the Cuccu family, such as Kille in which there are no suits, but certain cards have artwork and names that determine their effect.

Modern dedicated deck card games such as Dominion and Munchkin use neither suits nor ranks, instead having text and artwork which describes their effect in the game.

Sign in to keep reading

One more chapter is free with a Lably account.

More in Sports, games and recreation