1000 Blank White Cards

I was going to post this in the Game Zone, but I'm not sure it really works for any of my groups. Possibly Group Three, but I think this game would be better posted here.

1000 Blank White Cards is another game I discovered on BoardgameGeek. It's a public domain game, and all it requires is something to write with and a bunch of index cards. You don't necessarily have to have one thousand, but you may get there eventually.

To begin with, on your very first playing of the game, pass out six blank white cards to each player. Each player then must put three things on the card - a title, an illustration, and an instruction.

• The title should be a brief description of what the card is. It can range from serious (POT OF GOLD) to silly (MEATBALL ATTACK) to meaningless (FIZZLE LUMPKIN).
• The illustration should illustrate what the card is about. If the title was POT OF GOLD, you might draw a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. If the title was MEATBALL ATTACK, you might draw a meatball with fangs. If the title was FIZZLE LUMPKIN...you get the idea. Don't feel like you have to be the world's greatest artist. A stick figure or smiley face is fine. But please put a little effort into it - scribbling on the card is no fun for anyone.
• The instruction is what the players must do now. It can be absolutely anything. +100 points, -200 points, take an extra turn, lose a turn, draw an extra card, jump up and down ten times, bark like a chicken, whatever. It may be a good idea to set a limit on number of points that can be awarded or taken away by a single card, such as +1000 or -1000. You don't have to, though, if you don't want to.

Once the cards have been made and placed face down in the center of the table, the dealer adds four more blank cards per player to the deck, shuffles, and deals five cards to each player. The rest of the deck goes face down in the center of the table.

The player to the dealer's left goes first. First, they draw, then they play. They can play a card on themselves (which they may want to do if it adds points), in which case they'll put the card in front of themselves. They can play a card on anyone else (which they may want to do if the cards takes points away), in which case they'll put the card in front of one of the other players. They can also play the card, but if its usefulness is done after they play it (such as lose a turn or take an extra turn), they discard the card face up next to the draw pile. These cards may not be used again, unless a card comes up that makes them playable again.

During the course of a game, players will come across some of the extra blank cards that were shuffled into the deck. The players may create those cards as the game goes on as they see fit. If someone has given themselves +infinity points or something ridiculous like that, players can create cards for themselves that negate that amount.

When the draw pile is depleted, players no longer draw first, but play their cards one at a time on their turn. When one player runs out of cards, the game is over. Add up all points in front of each player to determine the final score.

However, most serious 1KBWC players don't see this as the end of the game. In the game's epilogue, all cards used in the game are laid out, and each player picks five cards (not their own) that will be used in the next game. Many players say that whoever has the most cards picked at the end of the game is the true winner. The cards that are selected go into a seed deck for the next game, while the other cards can be disposed of or saved for posterity.

In future games, players should only create 3 cards before the game (unless it is their first time). Four cards are still added to the deck for each player in the game.

This is a pretty fun game. I've played it once, trying to nail down the intricacies, and I'm ready to play again.