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The Everdeck: A Universal Card System (2019)

103 points by surprisetalk 7 days ago | 30 comments

I actually own this, but I find that, in practice, remembering the mappings is tricky for most players. Also, it's surprisingly annoying to not have rotationally symmetric cards, or needing to hold the cards in a different way.

spencerflem 44 minutes ago

Yeah :c I feel the same way. They’ve made a variant with more traditional poker deck look but the same rank/suits of the ever deck that I’m excited to try one day

goache 8 hours ago

I created my own multideck a few years ago: https://randomlyunique.com/random/2023/improved-multideck/in... (SVG in link)

I use this deck all the time too - it was well worth the $25 to print it out.

SLWW 2 hours ago

The mystic bent limits the usability of the deck, since most people I play with, when playing games like Sheepshead try playing with more traditional decks. As well as traditional Tarot decks from Russia (OG tarot, not modern designs).

Vintage Tarot decks include more art/influence from the current ruling empire, not new-age mystic nonsense.

this_is_a_drill 4 hours ago

In case no one's mentioned it yet, this reminds me of Heckadeck : https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/296334/heckadeck

msluyter 9 hours ago

Really cool deck! Anyone out there play Mu? It's an _excellent_ trick taking card game. One of the few (complex, trick-taking... I'm not counting stuff like Uno in this genre) card games that I know of that works really well with 5 or 6 players. This deck _almost_ would work for Mu, but it'd need different point values. (I keep having to rebuy new Mu games when the deck wears out so I've been contemplating other possibilities.)

zhynn 3 hours ago

Mu is awesome, one of my favorites. I especially like the "Mu and More" and "Mu and Much More" decks that have other games you can play in the box. It is a bit fiddly customizing the decks for the different games, but it is amazing how much game is in that one box. Njet was mentioned in another comment, and that is one of my go-to games when playing with non-gamers.

Mu is my favorite trick taking game of all time, but it is difficult enough that I don't get a chance to play it very often.

zem 3 hours ago

"oh hell!" is another great trick taking game for multiple players. it's lightweight but lots of fun.

drpfenderson 9 hours ago

I went down the rabbit hole of alternative games for this deck, and saw Mü mentioned in the forums with some tips alongside a table. Hopefully that helps, though I did notice someone commented about needing to remember the point values.

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/303652/more-games-playabl...

quibono 9 hours ago

I'm currently looking for some board/card games to play with friends so thank you for mentioning Mu, it sounds fun!

Also I didn't know those were called trick-taking games [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-taking_game

shagie 8 hours ago

Pagat is a wonderful source for all things card games. https://www.pagat.com - in particular https://www.pagat.com/class/trick.html which at that level is the groups of games (under the trump group is the euchre group which itself has six games)

shagie 8 hours ago

It is. I do. It is. My simple description of it is that its bridge with revealing cards for bidding and dynamic partnerships.

There is an iOS version of it - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/m%C3%BC/id351448383 (and it runs on my mini - https://imgur.com/a/eJsx4Wd )

And yea, the point values would be the problematic parts.

Incidentally, there's been a new issuing of the game: from the publisher - https://shop.czechgames.com/mu-more/ though it appears to be out of stock there, there is a reseller with the new version https://www.cardhaus.com/mu-more/

---

I'd also suggest Nyet ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1107/nyet ) which is another odd deck count game (3x1, 1x[2...13]) x 4 suits. It was originally a ruleset for the Mü deck where you excluded rules from the next round ("no - not that rule" -> "Nyet")

Willamin 6 hours ago

I’d love to see a variation on the concept that minimizes information on each card. It would of course result in a larger deck, but would reduce visual noise while playing games.

I think one colored suit symbol and one rank is the most needed. Some cards could have symbols like Uno’s “skip” card as their rank.

tbmtbmtbmtbmtbm 42 minutes ago

yeah, I agree. This is a very cool idea but the visual design of the cards needs some tightening up

WorldMaker 6 hours ago

I think my biggest complaint with this deck is that the Os and 0s look the same in the chosen font. They are in opposite corners on the card and one should always be colored and the other black, so shouldn't be easily confused in an oriented spread or in orienting the cards, so it is mostly just an aesthetic complaint.

c22 3 hours ago

Unfortunately I'm already heavily invested into the Deckmaster system.

NoSalt 5 hours ago

What is it about a good card game that is so appealing? I am not a fan of dice games at all, but give me some cards to hold, and I'm in.

spencerflem 45 minutes ago

I own a few of these- they’re lovely things but I’ve not found them easy to bring out in a group. The same author’s made a variant that loses some features to gain looking like a very standard poker deck (with just more numbers and suits) that I really like the look of

Trufa 6 hours ago

Are there any good svg free deck designs out there? Like the traditional looking ones?

fellowniusmonk 9 hours ago

Finally we have a deck that can support my new game Calvin Deck.

rspoerri 10 hours ago

21$ deck, 27$ delivery... no

imzadi 9 hours ago

I have one. The cards are pretty well made and it's a nice deck. Decent playing cards do tend to be expensive.

pimlottc 9 hours ago

Must be US-based, it’s $6.14 for the cheapest shopping for me

pcj-github 9 hours ago

And then for that shipping price, takes 4-6 weeks for delivery? Or you can have it 8 days for something like $130? I don't get it.

TJSomething 53 minutes ago

It's not the delivery that takes that long. It's the printing. It's a print on demand item, printed in the United States. The decks don't currently exist and the current print queue is just that long. If you want to jump the queue, that will be extra.

ifh-hn 9 hours ago

This looks complicated! The only card games I know are patience and Uno. Oh and top trumps, but not sure if that counts...

jupitr 10 hours ago

this feels like excellent foundations for a board game. fascinating!

tines 9 hours ago

> The Everdeck is designed with a ruthless combinatorial efficiency. Beneath its minimalist pen-and-ink design lies layers of mathematical and linguistic patterns. This isn’t just a deck with haphazardly placed extra glyphs; rather, it aims to be both beautiful and practical.

This paragraph was designed as ruthless LLM slop.

shagie 8 hours ago

That paragraph was written in 2019 which predates LLM slop. Some people just write that way.

buellerbueller 8 hours ago

Whats worse than AI slop? Humans misclassifying other humans' outputs as AI slop.