Friday Freebie for Family Fun - 1,000 Blank White Card Printables
We enjoy games around these parts and I always have (see Tuesday’s post for proof). We play all sorts of games from some of the classic Cheap Ass games to involved games like Arkham Horror. We enjoy playing classics from time to time like Backgammon and Drew is a big fan of Go. Several years ago we were told about a build-your-own card game called 1,000 Blank White Cards (1kBMC). We introduced it to our game playing friends and it was a hit.
The basic premise of 1kBWC is that you build your own deck cards, traditionally from index cards cut in half. 1/3 of the deck are already drawn cards from a “seed deck” of previous games that were voted to be carried forward by that game’s players, 1/3 of the deck is drawn before dealing the cards and a 1/3 are blank cards and drawn as the game progresses. If it is your first 1kBWC game you’ll just draw 2/3 of the deck before the cards are dealt.
If you’ve ever played Flux, that is kind of how this works. Each card must have a title and drawing on it and either a point value or an action that applies to either an individual or the table as a whole. Once the entire deck has been played the game is over and the winner is the person with the most points - that is unless someone draws a card that changes those rules!
For Christmas this year gifts were optional and if done were to be homemade. I don’t know about you, but men can be hard to gift to anyway, let alone with the restriction of it being homemade. And our preserves were going to the women. We didn’t know if all the men played games, but we knew a few did. So, I designed a little logo for 1,000 Blank White Cards that we had printed on business cards. Then I created a little rule book that is the same size of the business cards so it can be stored with them. Put together, we gave people 500 cards to start their 1kBWC decks. That should be enough for many games as the deck is usually made up of 15 cards per player.
Well, I went to all the work and we’re not likely to get to make use of it again anytime soon. It seemed a bit of a waste of time and creative energy. That was until I realized I could share it! So you can download the cards and/or the rule book and create your own 1000 Blank White Card set for yourself or gifting. The cards should print on business card paper, though I recommend you test it on plain paper and hold it up to bright light with your business card paper to double check. You can also print the cards on heavy cardstock and cut them to size with a paper cutter.
The rule book is two pages that need printed back to back. Instructions on how to cut and fold the book are included in the file. I recommend a slightly heavier bond of standard printer paper. Cardstock is a bit too stiff for nice clean folding, but too light of a paper doesn’t hold the creases as well and you can sometimes have text bleed through.
While we’ve only played the game with adults, I think this would be a great game for the whole family. Since you create it as you go it can be created to suit the individual players. In fact, we discovered if you play with two drastically different groups of people it is nice to have a seed deck for each type of group.
If I’m ever stuck for card ideas I like to draw on pop culture references - song lyrics, movie quotes, famous books or characters. Others like to draw upon other game actions they can think of. Above are a few sample cards from our seed deck.
Well, what are you waiting for? Start drawing and playing!
