Card games
Main article: Card game
Further information: Collectible card game
Playing Cards, by Theodoor Rombouts, 17th century
Card games use a deck of cards as their central tool. These cards may be a standard
Anglo-American (52-card) deck of playing cards (such as for bridge, poker, Rummy,
etc.), a regional deck using 32, 36 or 40 cards and different suit signs (such as
for the popular German game skat), a tarot deck of 78 cards (used in Europe to play
a variety of trick-taking games collectively known as Tarot, Tarock or Tarocchi
games), or a deck specific to the individual game (such as Set or 1000 Blank White
Cards). Uno and Rook are examples of games that were originally played with a
standard deck and have since been commercialized with customized decks. Some
collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering are played with a small
selection of cards that have been collected or purchased individually from large
available sets.
Some board games include a deck of cards as a gameplay element, normally for
randomization or to keep track of game progress. Conversely, some card games such
as Cribbage use a board with movers, normally to keep score. The differentiation
between the two genres in such cases depends on which element of the game is
foremost in its play; a board game using cards for random actions can usually use
some other method of randomization, while Cribbage can just as easily be scored on
paper. These elements as used are simply the traditional and easiest methods to
achieve their purpose.
Dice games
Main article: Dice game
Students using dice to improve numeracy skills. They roll three dice, then use
basic math operations to combine those into a new number which they cover on the
board. The goal is to cover four squares in the row.
Dice games use a number of dice as their central element. Board games often use
dice for a randomization element, and thus each roll of the dice has a profound
impact on the outcome of the game, however dice games are differentiated in that
the dice do not determine the success or failure of some other element of the game;
they instead are the central indicator of the person's standing in the game.
Popular dice games include Yahtzee, Farkle, Bunco, Liar's dice/Perudo, and Poker
dice. As dice are, by their very nature, designed to produce apparently random
numbers, these games usually involve a high degree of luck, which can be directed
to some extent by the player through more strategic elements of play and through
tenets of probability theory. Such games are thus popular as gambling games; the
game of Craps is perhaps the most famous example, though Liar's dice and Poker dice
were originally conceived of as gambling games.
Domino and tile games
Main articles: Tile-based game and Dominoes
Domino games are similar in many respects to card games, but the generic device is
instead a set of tiles called dominoes, which traditionally each have two ends,
each with a given number of dots, or "pips", and each combination of two possible
end values as it appears on a tile is unique in the set. The games played with
dominoes largely center around playing a domino from the player's "hand" onto the
matching end of another domino, and the overall object could be to always be able
to make a play, to make all open endpoints sum to a given number or multiple, or
simply to play all dominoes from one's hand onto the board. Sets vary in the number
of possible dots on one end, and thus of the number of combinations and pieces; the
most common set historically is double-six, though in more recent times "extended"
sets such as double-nine have been introduced to increase the number of dominoes
available, which allows larger hands and more players in a game. Muggins, Mexican
Train, and Chicken Foot are very popular domino games. Texas 42 is a domino game
more similar in its play to a "trick-taking" card game.
Variations of traditional dominoes abound: Triominoes are similar in theory but are
triangular and thus have three values per tile. Similarly, a game known as Quad-
Ominos uses four-sided tiles.
Some other games use tiles in place of cards; Rummikub is a variant of the Rummy
card game family that uses tiles numbered in ascending rank among four colors, very
similar in makeup to a 2-deck "pack" of Anglo-American playing cards. Mahjong is
another game very similar to Rummy that uses a set of tiles with card-like values
and art.
Lastly, some games use graphical tiles to form a board layout, on which other
elements of the game are played. Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne are examples. In
each, the "board" is made up of a series of tiles; in Settlers of Catan the
starting layout is random but static, while in Carcassonne the game is played by
"building" the board tile-by-tile. Hive, an abstract strategy game using tiles as
moving pieces, has mechanical and strategic elements similar to chess, although it
has no board; the pieces themselves both form the layout and can move within it.
