Night Parade Fusion Playing Cards (Kickstarter)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iws/night-parade-fusion-playing-cards-hanafuda-poker

A multi-purpose deck of cards for playing Eastern and Western games!

Cost: ~US$15 per deck
Current funding level: just launched
Kickstarter ends: Dec 5, 2019

The Night Parade Fusion deck is the latest project from IndianWolf Studios. It is called a Fusion deck because it doubles as a standard deck of cards, and as a Hanafuda deck.

Hanafuda has an entry on BoardGameGeek, because it is a classic and special deck that originates in 18th century Japan. It is used to play a whole lot of different games, including favorite classics like Koi-Koi (popular in Japan) and Go Stop (popular in Korea).

IndianWolf Studios has come up with the clever idea of combining the Hanafuda deck with the traditional deck of playing cards most of us are familiar with today, so that you can play games from a variety of cultures. They have already created two previous Hanafuda "Fusion" decks, both with Japanese inspired art, as part of their successful Hanami Hanafuda and the Sensu Hanafuda projects. To learn more about these previous Fusion decks, see my article reviewing Hanafuda here: Not just a deck of cards, but a system of games with a rich heritage!

The Kickstarter project has images of sample cards from the forthcoming Night Parade Fusion deck, and you can see how these incorporates standard poker card icons/indices, and can be used for Hanafuda games as well.

The artwork of the Night Parade deck is polyptych in style, which means that the cards can be combined alongside each other to create a single larger image.

This deck takes its name from the stories that describes all the `yokai' that enter the human world at night. In Japanese folklore yokai is a broad term that includes a whole range of supernatural beings and strange phenomena, including monsters, spirits, and more. Stories range from describing the Night Parade of these yokai as an orderly procession traveling the roads to an unruly horde spreading pandemonium, and the Night Parade deck depicts the same diversity.

Printing is by the Expert Playing Card Company (EPCC), which is based in Taiwan. EPCC is one of the top playing card manufacturers today alongside the United States Playing Card Company, so the cards themselves are guaranteed to be high quality, durable, and to shuffle and handle smoothly.

The Night Parade Fusion deck will also come with a bonus 16-page full-color booklet containing the rules for the game Orochi. This is a 2-4 player shedding/climbing game that has been designed and created especially for this deck. The climbing game genre is a familiar one that includes popular card games like Tichu, The Great Dalmuti, President, and Big Two, so the addition of Orochi makes this deck of additional interest to card gamers.

What about Hanafuda games, and how do you play them? Already available from the publisher is a 236-page full-color Hanafuda rulebook that gives the rules for 37 different games that can be played with a Hanafuda deck. You can get this in a digital version or a printed version from Amazon (Hanami edition or Sensu edition) or Barnes & Noble (Hanami edition or Sensu edition). This massive rulebook is a world first, and is an extremely valuable resource, because clear rules for Hanafuda games are otherwise not readily available in English.

Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iws/night-parade-fusion-playing-cards-hanafuda-poker

Disclaimer: I have no official relationship with the creator of this project, other than being a keen gamer and reviewer, as well as an enthusiast and collector of custom playing cards. I own a copy of the previous Hanafuda Fusion decks from IndianWolf Studios and also have their Hanafuda rulebook, and consider them outstanding.

Sorry I'm late, others have given you great ways to have a good deck produced, they can be a little bit expensive, if you goal was to simply print one deck for a card game.


If you really just want to print one deck for a drinking game, but have it on something more resembling a deck of real cards, you can simply print the cards on a good quality linen finish cardstock:


https://www.amazon.com/Southworth-Cotton-Coverstock-inches-Z550CK/dp/B00125JBX4/


If you are just printing text, than a good quality home printer should produce an acceptable quality. If you want to throw a few more dollars at the project, take it to staples and have it printed on a high quality laser printer.


You'll have to cut the edges on a basic straight edge paper cutter, unless you have access to a die-cutter to perform the nice rounded corners you find on a deck of cards. They can be rather expensive and not worth-while for a project of this small scale.


One tip, I can offer is to use a whole punch to clean the corners. A 90 degree angle corner on a card is likely to get bent and deformed over time. Carefully running each corner into a hole punch will "die-cut" each corner into a inverted arc. Not as good as a real die-cut, but a nice little finish, if done accurately. It will take some experimenting to set up guides on the whole punch that you can align each corner into to get a symmetrical even punch each time. If you mess it up, the deck will not stack straight on the corners.

EDIT - Never mind, looks like corner rounders are now pretty cheap!

https://www.amazon.com/Aidox-Angle-Eater-Corner-Rounder/dp/B00161Q13C

There are quite a few of the traditional regional European decks that have borderless designs. I'll see if I can post a couple of examples of the kind of thing I mean.

Some common patterns are squiggles and
checks. Note though that such decks may not be standard 52 card decks ... it's quite common to find abbreviated decks and/or different suits. Seeing as they are standard decks produced in huge quantities they are pretty cheap though.

This is a different kind: a style of back with a fancy full bleed area surrounding a different central design. This is a standard French deck, but such back patterns are typical in Spain and Italy.

In terms of modern custom decks, I'll just mention that Jackson Robinson produced a couple such designs in recent months. I don't know whether you'll be able to get hold of either of these though, as one is limited in a finished Kickstarter campaign, and the other is exclusive to members of his club. They are quite pretty though, and I think a bit different from what he usually does. Equinox and Tigers LE.

Anyway, yes I like this style of backs a lot, and I try to use them in my own work if I can as well!

saw this and i think this deck looks a ton better than this one. its called Great Outdoors playing cards. comes in a wood tuck box and even though they are not printed by USPCC, so quality is probably horrid, the artwork is awesome on them and they are fairly cheap https://www.amazon.com/Great-Outdoors-Playing-Cards-Chronicle/dp/1452164959

Yeah
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Macmillan-Alice-Cards-Lewis-Carroll/dp/1509820485

Currently unavailable here: Amazon | Drinxx by Umbra -- Designed by: Jason Nip / Chris Barnes

I don't know if Umbra was the seller. It seems like more of a home furnishing kind of place and doesn't show the cards on their website. If you search for "umbra drinxx playing cards" you get a bunch of different waterproof cards scattered around Ebay, etc. but not these. Jason Nip is a product designer.

Italian Playing Cards! Briscola was the game of my high school years. It's all we played. It was a predominantly Italian school, so I guess that makes sense. There were several different decks at the school, but the backs of the ones I linked were always my favourite.

also on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Bicycle-Specialty-4-Deck-Bundle/dp/B08239QCYG/ref=pd_rhf_ee_p_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EVA4EX82BZHKK8R65K0J

https://www.amazon.com/CUSTOM-SAMPLE-Bicycle-Playing-Ellusionist-com/dp/B000LVEU3G/ref=sr_1_5?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1494469332&sr=1-5&keywords=tally+ho+viper

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001GN1H0M/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519671838&sr=8-1-spons&pi=AC_SX140_SY202_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=knight+playing+cards&psc=1

No problem.
BCW Super Monster 5 Row, Corrugated Cardboard, Storage Box https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000K41E7E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_rVKLybG23ZKPJ

Bicycle Reverse Yellow

https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Makers-Yellow-Bicycle-Playing/dp/B000K229DO

The five crowns deck is probably closest to what you want since stardeck isn't around anymore. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000IV35/

I have a vintage eagle deck from uspcc and those can still be found, but will cost at a bit and not really for playing due to more collectable. Decket and monster deck would fit the bill, but more full alternative suits. Rage game may work for you too.

There are also a number of similar custom decks with 5 or 6 suits on game crafter.
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/playing-cards

Also, see here https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/173496/upper-decks-card-games-alternative-playing-card-sy