Anyone out there who has never picked up a deck of playing cards; for a round of rummy or solitaire, a game of poker, a magic trick, or to build a house of cards? Have you ever wondered though where it all began, how these pieces of illustrated papers evolved across the world? Here comes a great online resource  with a wide range of answers: The World of Playing Cards.

WOPC, established in 1996, is “a living encyclopaedia of the history and visual art of playing cards”. The website comprises over 4000 articles on the subject, and thousands of cards from 109 countries – from 15th century to date. You can explore the whole content by searching by country, year or keyword.

For those interested in the history behind, Early History of Playing Cards is a perfect article to start, which presents a rich account of the origins and a timeline of these charming artefacts.

The collection has quite a few stunningly beatufil designs – a few hand-picked examples below should give you a flavor of what is at hand. (Click to enlarge)

Now it’s your turn - shuffle the cards, deal a hand, and play your way around this colorful world.

The game is called “museum trip"... to a museum of play. Who’s playing? To Rochester, USA we go.

The Strong museum of play, founded in 1968 by M.W.Strong, “a prolific collector of everyday objects, especially dolls and toys” has grown since then to be a “collections-based museum devoted to the history and exploration of play”. In addition to the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play, the museum houses exhibitions on the subject and a research center.

Games can by no means be contained within museums. Still, the museum is an exhilarating plaything for any ludophile.

Should we go all the way to the States then? Not necessarily. You can make a virtual tour via this link. What is more, you can browse the collections comprising tens of thounds of toys and play-related historical artifacts and visit many online exhibits.

Dear Ludozofi community,

We have been sharing games and related stuff via our Facebook page for almost three years, and on Ludozofi.com for even longer now. We are glad to see that we are now a biggish group of ludophiles.

As a next step forward, now we have another dream: to come together at local game meetups, in person. We need local gambassadors to help organise these events.

We hereby make a call to those who are interested to fill out this form.

Because united we play, divided we can't.

And because game requires action.

Let's!

After their first appearance in Europe in Middle Ages, playing cards are banned by the church. Decks of playing cards then evolve into a unique world of their own in the wake of Renaissance. They become, among others, a means of hermetic philosophy, and imaginative depictions of the universe and the changing society. The World in Play, Luxury Cards 1430-1540, a catalogue prepared for an exhibition in 2016, sheds light on the history of playing cards and the concept of play at 15th and 16th centuries.

"Collectively, the figures and scenes depicted on these cards reflect changing worldviews during a period of tumultuous social, economic, and religious change, charting the transition from late medieval to early modern Europe." (from Exhibition Overview)

The Washington Post, July 2019

"It is not a sound normally associated with the border, particularly in its latest role as a national symbol of incalculable political charge.

But there it was, as unmistakable as the pink seesaws that prompted it: laughter.

Two architects in the San Francisco Bay area are responsible for the installation over the weekend of the three seesaws that briefly graced a small stretch of the nearly-2,000-mile swath of land where the United States abuts Mexico."

Read the full story

Kotaku, March 2011

A Kafkaesque story on a Beckettian video game, Brian Ashcraft reporting:

Mike Rosenthal made an absurdist game based on the absurdist play Waiting for Godot. It's a parody, a send-up of Samuel Beckett's famous work. But you know what's really absurd? How Beckett's estate reacted to the game.

Rosenthal says he was inspired by Beckett's work, because Waiting for Godot asks the audience to interpret the play. Likewise, early video games asked players to interpret the graphics.

(...) "Taking all the fun out of a game is funny. Basing a game on a play where nothing happens is funny. And people played it!" One guy apparently made it to the 99th level. Read the full story

The Playground Project is “an ongoing research project and an online archive on the history of playgrounds.” The rich variety of written and visual documents showing different approaches to playground design in various geographies along the twentieth century invites us to give a thought on the relation between play and space in the urban context. All material is accessible from the links listed on the left panel of the website. For updates and more you can follow the Facebook page of the project.

Kaos GL, January 2017

Kaos GL, an association for gay and lesbian cultural research and solidarity based in Turkey, announced that in the issue of our March–April 2017 their magazine will focus on “Game and Sports”. Here is the call for contributions:

"The game, together with ritual, is the most concentrated area of social existence.  According to Huizinga, the game, which is an indispensable part of life that also existed before culture, always get into the selfs, relations and belongings. The sport, which has all the features of the game, of course goes beyond this first meaning with industrialization and professionalism. However, we can not say that both the game in general and the individual or team sports immanently impose the forms of masculine of feminine actions.  This is precisely why we want to focus on the Works in this field in order to organize the anti-heterosexist attitudes and the personal feminine modes of action within the World of sport against industrial, masculine and homophobic sports structure.

For this purpose, we would like to give place to works about the performative examples of even how the most “Professional” players in patriarchal and homophobic industry of today’s sport can become multi-gendered in the game system, sport industry and its bourgeoisifying, and the social meaning of being team, fans and athletes.

We are waiting for your contributions to editor@kaosgl.org by February 5th." 

DS, October 2016

The Youth and Sports Ministry has pointed out the dangers of Islamophobia creeping into young minds through video games with a new campaign. A booklet titled "Islamophobia In Video Games" was presented at a convention of sports and youth ministers at the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) that ended in Istanbul on Friday. The booklet shows examples of outright Islamophobic graphics, text and actions in games that broadly insult Muslims.

July 2016

A location-based augmented reality game for mobile devices, 

Pokémon Go, released by Nintendo has been shaking the mobile game market since then. Below you will find links to three interesting articles pointing to various possible readings of the game and what is actually at stake in the world it creates.

In a short Overland post Jeff Sparrow questions possible convergence between the experience created by the game and the dreams of Situationist International  in terms of modifying the urban space by traversing it in an unusual way. Sparrow notes that "it manages – at least temporarily – to set you wandering a city landscape that’s been re-enchanted, a place where monsters appear in everyday streets and where familiar landmarks serve new purposes according to the logic of a different universe."

Elsewhere, Laurence Dodds claims, against the argument the game blinds people by isolating them from the real world, that Pokemon Go players aren't ignoring reality but changing it.

Finally, Sam Kriss of Jacobin Magazine contends that Pokémon Go must be resisted because it is "coercion, authority, a command issuing from out of a blank universe, which blasts through social and political cleavages to finally catch ‘em all."

Edit: Another critical piece on the game, partly in response to Sam Kriss' article has just been published on ROAR. In Google’s lemmings: Pokémon go where Silicon Valley says Alfie Bown points to "corporate control and the ability of our mobile phones to organize our desires."

You can download the articles from the library... or not?

ESPNFC, July 2016

"Wendell Lira is hanging up his football boots for FIFA 17.

The 2015 Puskas Award winner announced on Thursday that he has called quits on the beautiful game to instead pursue a career in video gaming, and he couldn't be happier.

The former Goianesia man made world headlines after taking home the prize for 2015's best goal with a twisting bicycle kick against Atletico Goianiense. Now, six months after winning the award, he is back in the spotlight for another eye-opening turn.

But the move doesn't appear to be as random as it sounds. Speaking to Globoesporte.com, the the 27-year-old FIFA fanatic explained it was always his dream to become a gamer."

You can watch Lira's award winning goal here. We hope that he will keep scoring more of these beautiful goals in his new career!

April 2016

The independent game design & publishing collective Out of Order Games kick off their 'subversive experiments in tabletop gaming' with a creative board game of revolutionary strategy, hidden agendas & 21st century urban rebellion - Bloc by Bloc: The Insurrection Game.

"Our varied experiences in street protests, social movements, and anarchist projects around the world guide our practices and the political choices we make as part of this work" say the collective members.

This exciting project awaits your support to be brought to life. Check out the Kickstarter page of the project for further details and do not forget to help welcome Bloc by Bloc to the world of subversive games! 

The Guardian, Jan.2016

A Greek second-tier league match was delayed on Friday when players staged a sit-down protest against the death toll of migrants trying to reach the Aegean islands.

The gesture of solidarity took place before the game between AEL Larissa and Acharnaikos in the Thessalian city of Larissa.

As the match kicked off all 22 players plus coaches and substitutes sat in silence for two minutes in a show of respect to the hundreds of refugees who have lost their lives trying to escape conflict or persecution in countries such as Syria and Iraq.

An announcement over the club’s PA system stated: “The administration of AEL, the coaches and the players will observe two minutes of silence just after the start of the match in memory of the hundreds of children who continue to lose their lives every day in the Aegean due to the brutal indifference of the EU and Turkey.

Play the City offers a playground for resolving urban planning issues, including stakeholders such as citizens, local govermenment representatives and investors as players. This is how they describe the project:

"We use gaming as a problem-solving method bringing top down decision makers together with bottom up stakeholders. In the accessible environment of games, freed from the jargons, various ideas, plans and projects meet, conflict and collaborate towards negotiated outcomes. We believe gaming is the real alternative to standard formats of public consultation in the 21st century."

playthecity // facebook page

 Critical Theory, Dec.2013

When this first popped on Reddit, I was positive it was a fake, yet hilarious, photoshop job.

But Class Struggle is a real board game, released in 1978 by NYU professor Bertel Ollman. It was even translated into multiple languages, including Spanish and German.

...

Class Struggle was published by board game maker Avalon Hill. In the game, according to Board Game Geek, “the Workers move around a board while trying to survive against the Capitalist who control everything. As the Workers unite they take power from the Capitalist players but if they do not succeed in uniting the Capitalist will win.”

Many of the rules are just like real life capitalism: you don’t get to pick what class you play as, and if you’re one of the lower classes, sucks for you. Capitalists get to roll first and decide the turn order of the game. 

3rd Global Conference called 'Making Sense of: Play' will be held in Prague, Nov.1-3, 2014. Here is the call for papers.

For the archive including presentations given in the first and second conferences check 1st Global Conference (2012) and 2nd Global Conference (2013), under session links on the right panel of the pages.