Games - Top Trumps

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	Games - Top Trumps

Top Trumps is a card game whereby the aim is collect all the cards in the pack (thirty in the modern version).

Gameplay

Each card in the pack describes an item from a selected theme, such as cars or aircraft. The given item is usually described in terms of a number of statistics. Thus in the example of a pack on the cars theme, each card will describe one car in terms of its engine size, weight, top speed etc.

All the cards are dealt among the players, which can vary from two upwards. The starting player selects a category from his topmost card and reads out its value. Each other player will do the same. The winner of the round is the one with the highest (or otherwise best) value for the chosen item. That player wins each other players card and places them in the bottom of his/her pile. S/He then has the right to choose the category for the next round. In the event of a draw the cards are placed in the centre and a new topic is chosen from the next card by the same person as in the previous round. (Some house rules require that the same category be chosen for the round following a draw.) The winner of that round obtains both the cards in the centre as well as one from each player.

Players are eliminated when they lose their last card and the winner is the one who obtains the whole pack.

History

Top Trumps was a very popular children's game in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, especially amongst boys, for whom it was a popular playground pastime. The topics tended to reflect this, with military hardware, modes of transport and racing cars all being used. Later pack themes also included footballers for example. The packs tended to be priced such that children could collect new packs by saving for a few weeks.

The original Top Trumps were launched in 1977 with eleven different packs by a company called Dubreq, best known for the stylophone. The company was taken over by Waddingtons in 1982 and they continued manufacturing packs until the mid 1980s. The packs from this period are now very collectable.

In 1999 the rights to the game were purchased by Winning Moves who reintroduced the game. The topics covered tend to be much more diverse, including card packs on topics such as (examples of each genre in brackets):

Transport: (Supercars, Racing Trucks, Motorbikes and Scooters)
Military Hardware: (Warships, Ultimate Military Aircraft)
Scientific: (Space Phenomena, Dinosaurs)
Engineering: (Skyscrapers)
Wildlife: (Predators, Sharks)
Sports: (World Football Stars, Celtic F.C.)
Book Characters: "The World of Roald Dahl: Goodies and Baddies"
Comics: (The Beano, Marvel Comic Heroes)
Television Series: (The Simpsons, 24)
Films: (Lord of the Rings (x3), Star Wars (x2), Shrek 2, The Incredibles, Harry Potter (x2))

In the new packs usually an additional description for the item on each card is given, and in the case of the wildlife, scientific categories in particular the cards can give some educational benefit.

The success of the recent series has led to a "junior" version of the game being produced, with topics such as Disney Heroes, and there is even a more adult pack on FHM Covergirls. Also many of the packs are, like their predecessors, becoming collectable, especially those sold for limited times (such as those associated with films), or which were specially commissioned. There is also a version of the game available on WAP.

A number of recent packs have also featured super top trump cards (STT). These additional cards are not available with the original pack, but can be found in related merchandise. For example, the popular US television series 24 has a Top Trumps pack, but the STT card is only available when you buy season 3 on DVD. Some STT cards can be obtained free of charge through membership of the Top Trumps club and using its website, usually for a limited period. Some of these SST cards are rarer than others: the cards available through the web are relatively common. In contrast, the Roald Dahl pack grandmama card is extremely rare as it was only given out, free, to Scouts at a charity sleepover event in 2004.

A number of packs have also been released in other countries as well as the UK. These include Germany, France, Spain, Turkey, Australia and the USA.

Their success has also led to other companies producing similar products, principally on the transport/military themes.

There are also a number of web based variants of the game. For example the BBC have variants on snooker, Buffy, Doctor Who and EastEnders located on their site while the Webtrumps site has games with rules closer to the card game.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Top Trumps ]

Games - Top Trumps

Gameplay

History

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