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GAMES NEW AND REDISCOVERED

"Card games—however much disparaged by people who don’t happen to care for them—have made a contribution of great value to the pattern of Western civilization. They offer intellectual stimulus; harmless excite­ment; and, above all, an occasional respite from the incessant strain to which we are all subject in a frightening and frightened world." Hubert Phillips

Games of chance foreground the uniformly random nature of the cosmos.

 

Cards and dice reassure us as to the benefits of the preparation of strategies and the stoic acceptance of reversals of fortune, all from the calm of a kitchen table. â€‹ We present a range of card and dice games in the tradition of fine printing, both new editions of older games and new inventions.

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Packs of cards can be tiny art galleries, featuring the elegance of an artist book in a pocketsize looseleaf codex.

The Flowerdew press has many packs of cards for idle hours, or hours you would like to fill with idleness. Here are some categories to browse - there are 500 card games on our site. 

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For our dice games, please visit our dice page here:

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Invented games involve new games with new packs of cards, 
Try your hand at the Game of 36 Beasts, or explore the realms of colour and form with the Ogdoadic deck!

Playing card Inventions

New card games to try!

Play a 1920s game of colour theory, or go on adventures with Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Play the mathematician's game of Mephisto, and wager on the Faust Card! Match the couples on the Island of Mutes with Punchinello Vampire!

Card game recreations

Old games remade

Zodiac decks

Signs of the zodiac as courts

Based on a revolutionary minimalist 1890s Florentine design from the 1890s, a set of packs designed to play ombre and more

Ombre packs

Simple but elegant design

We have gathered new designs for the traditional patterns of the world, and completed shorter 32 or 48 card packs to enable playing international games like bridge or poker, or standard solitaire games

New traditional designs

New stylings for old decks

Astronomy & Sky Games

Astronomy and Skyscape games

Card games have their origins in representation of die faces. Some card packs have returned to that tradition to give you new ways to play.

Dice Cards

Play dice with cards

These are games where colour determines rules of play. Explore colour theory in the abstract with these games.

Colour Games

Games where colour is all

Buy a new old pack of cards. Play with new editions of the classics of the past, including the Cloister set, the oldest existing complete European card set.

Playing card time machine

Try a pack from the past

Gallery Packs of Cards: art history in your pocket but not on a phone! Reviving the tradition of card packs as galleries.

Gallery packs

Art in your pocket!

Many of the great card packs of history were made for short packs, 32 cards, or 36, or 48, sometimes even 20. Additionally there are half design half-finished, or games half-lost. We have broughtthem up to 52 cards plus 2 jokers for international play

Completions

The great packs of the past complete to 52 cards

These are a stylish modernist pack drawing on 1920s design elements. 13 packs in different patterns, so old and familiar, some new and strange.

Vignette packs

Elegant pocketsize packs

Play games with words, letters, even letter sounds in the games. Some are more than a century old, other are new and different. If you love language, you will love these games!

Word Games

Word games new and old for language-lovers.

These are games designed to help people learn things about a subject, be it music or history or mythology

Encyclopedia Games

Gallery packs dedicated to learning

Card domino games are popular not only because of their convenience, but also because they allow much larger sets in a manageable form.

Domino Cards

Play dominoes with cards

More games are invented than ever see the card table. We have reconstructed these lost games from patent documents for your enjoyment.

Games from the Patents

Lost games found!

Almanac Packs

Months of the year as courts

Cards don't have to be oblong! Try our round, square, diamond or hexagonal cards!

Shaped cards

Games of different shapes!

Named for a Slavic word for a group of 60 things, These are packs of cards that have 15 cards per suit.

Kopa packs

60 card decks for new and old games

Play the many games that are couched in the Chinese diaspora's water cards tradition. Bonus, several designs using the Western Electric iconography of the Great Exhibition.

Mahjong Card Decks

Cards that use the water patterns

Tarot packs have a joint history of divination and card-play. We have several packs suitable for either, featuring artwork by Horton, Dufy and views of the years 2000 from 1900!

Divination packs

Play games or read the cards!

Packs of cards in the tradition of the 1940s Marseille Surrealist deck, with the bonus of a flipbook animation on the backs.

Parasurrealist Flipbooks

Packs with flipbook backs!

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