The most beautiful card game
There are many beautiful card games, but one really stands out for me - Guardians, a game released in 1995.
For the image above, I randomly selected a few cards from my Guardians collection, and the artwork on each one blows my socks off.
The game was released before digital art become the dominant force it now is. So all the artwork is done traditionally with oils or acrylics.
The artwork bursts out of the frame, which looks really cool. This has been imitated by other games since.
One of the game’s creators was Keith Parkinson, an accomplished artist, which explains why the art is so good. Other famous artists also worked on the game, including Brom.
As a game, it’s a bit quirky. The players move their creatures around on a grid, and engage in battles. A lot of the strategy is based around hidden information - which face down creatures does your opponent have?
I enjoyed playing the game, but the artwork is the outstanding feature. Like most card games of that era, it didn’t last particularly long, but it sold in enough volume that the cards can be picked up fairly easily on eBay.