2016 Volume 24 Issue 1 Pages 11-21
This study researches card games and how they reflect larger social problems. Simple card games, called trump in Japan, have various rules that can be viewed as metaphors for various social problems, and the card game bluff can be viewed as portraying illegal dumping as a social problem, for instance. We first review games for educational purpose. Next, we examine the card game Daifugo （Japanese for “multimillionaire”） as a simulation of an actual stratified society with many local rules to facilitate consensus and adaptation of the rules by players. We then examine case studies of the application of a modified version of rummy to food education and a modified version of ninety-nine for environmental education. We then examine the diffusion of common card games through their development and practice to consider social problems in light of the changing rules of card games. This research is a product of a JASAG Special Interest Group on card games which simulates social problems.
