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Shakespeare Carduta

COMEDY AND TRAGEDY

 „Hyakunin Isshu“ is a traditional Japanese card game originating in the 13^th  century, using old short Japanese poems; it uses only word cards, on which there is printed half of one poem. This game developed into „Karuta“ in the 16^th century, which is still played in Japanese families and originally was considered to be a children’s game. Karuta was played with 48 word cards and 48 picture cards, each picture card showed only one of 48 Japanese signs.

Shakespeare Carduta is a modern version of this mechanism and uses quotations from Shakespeare’s works. There is one set of cards with quotations from his tragedies and one with quotations from the comedies, and a combined set with 48 word cards and 48 picture cards. The picture cards are spread out, you can use any number of cards. Each picture-word-card only bears one half of the quotation, the complete quotation is printed on the word cards.

A game master not participating in the game reads out half of the quotation not on the picture card, it is printed in grey, and all players now simultaneously look for the picture-word-card which completes the quotation, If you are first to find the card you keep it. If you take a wrong card you put it back and are out of play for this quotation. When only one card is left on the table you win with most cards. In a version without a game master each player holds a word card, reads it and gives it to the player who finds the picture, and then draws a new card.

Not an every-day game and not a game for every day, but fascinating for fans of Shakespeare as well as for all those interested in games from the Far East.

Players: 3-6

Age: 7+

Time: 20+

Designer: Ayako Yoshimi

Art: not named

Price: ca. 10 Euro per Set

Publisher: DTP Publishing 2007

Web: http://japonbrand.gamers-jp.com/

Genre: Literary game

Users: For families

Version: en

Rules: de en fr jp

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Two sets for comedy and tragedy

Presented at Essen 2011

Knowledge of Shakespeare is advantageous, but not necessary

Compares to:

First game of this kind

Other editions:

Combined Japanese edition

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 0

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 3

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0