Playing card websites

Remember the domino game Peaks & Pits which I invented and blogged about in October?

Well, it’s now been added to the index of invented games on John McLeod’s website. The one-sentence blurbs that John writes for each game are, I think, always excellent; his summary of Peaks and Pits reads: ‘A domino game by Adrian Morgan in which players aim to make “slopes” - playing tiles so that the numbers progress either upwards or downwards - changes of direction are penalised‘.

You’ll find a couple of other games on that list that I invented, by the way, although I’m far more pleased with Peaks & Pits than I am with the card games. I was quite young when I invented Suitmatch, and (although I think the underlying idea is reasonable), I would advise that anyone wishing to give it a go should bear in mind that it was invented by a child (teenager, really, but the point stands). I invented Counterweight more recently, and I think it’s OK, but I can’t imagine it becoming anyone’s favourite card game. It just adds one new possibility to the wide world of things to do with a pack of cards.

[Update: see my later posts on Suitmatch and Counterweight respectively.]

I feel differently about Peaks & Pits. There aren’t so many domino games as there are card games for it to compete with, and I can easily believe that it might become some people’s favourite domino game (if it is, I hope those people will email and tell me. Or leave a comment).

I highly recommend visiting John’s card game website, www.pagat.com. It’s a great place to browse; you can learn about games from around the world and you can expect to find something that intrigues you and makes you want to try it for yourself some time. It’s also extremely comprehensive. Many people feel a sentimental attachment to the card games of their childhood, especially those that are not widely known, and why not? It’s very reasonable to feel that way. You might want your favourite games to be preserved for posterity, giving them a kind of immortality as it were, but the author of a regular ink-and-paper book would probably not have space for them. John has space, and is interested. It would take a while for your submissions to get to the front of the queue, but you can be sure they’ll be on the queue. Just read the policy page first, which contains good, common-sense advice.

David Parlett’s website is also very much worth a visit, particularly for the information on historic card games.