Tarot Game

“The Tarot Game is a creative approach to learning the Tarot. It gives you a fun way to practice reading from the images themselves. Hearing your own stories aloud and those of your friends helps to deepen the correspondences of the cards to your life. I want you to get to know the cards. The more you touch, look, and imagine with them, the more you’ll understand their meanings. There may be some doubt about how it all works, but please know that it does.” – Jude Alexander, creator of the Tarot Game

Arguably the most innovative Tarot tool ever to grace the market, the Tarot Game by Jude Alexander provides an interactive card reading experience for novices, seekers, enthusiasts and adepts alike.

Published by Schiffer Books, the emergent frontrunner of groundbreaking Tarot decks and tools, the attractive flip-top Tarot Game box set comes with:

• Colorful game board

• Instructions

• Major Arcana Questions pamphlet

• 9 polished stones for game pieces

• 3 translucent golden dice

• 36 activity cards (spiral, star and question mark)

• 90 punch-out blessing coins

• Keyword Tarot deck

• 75 reading sheets (25 each for Novice, Enthusiast and Adept)

The central path of the Tarot Game is a spiral snake with segments like Major Arcana titles, activity squares (spirals, stars or question marks), infinity symbols or playful instructions (for example “Sing a song, Have others join in”).

Around the large game board are color-coded rectangles to place the Pentacles, Wands, Swords, Cups, Majors and Court Cards—as well as three sections to put the activity cards. However, a functional Tarot deck is NOT included with the Tarot Game, so you’ll have to provide at least one—perhaps two—Tarot decks in order to play.

Game play is a bit complex, so those completely new to Tarot will benefit from having an experienced enthusiast to play with.

My 12-year-old and I played the Tarot Game a few days ago, and we were both surprised at how accurate the cards and questions were—reflecting daily cards that kept popping up elsewhere (Strength for my son), or ones that have a significant meaning. (I chose to use the Adept Reading Sheet, which has a 6-card Moon Phase spread), while my son used the Novice Reading Sheet (a 3-card spread).

If you play with all three dice after landing on a Major Arcana card, you’ll likely reach the end rather quickly—perhaps before your sheet is filled (especially if you’re using the Adept Reading sheet). In that case, you can either start back at the beginning or work backwards until all positions are filled.

If you land on a Major Arcana card, you must pick a number from 1-5 and the other player will read the corresponding question for you to answer. For example, I landed on the High Priestess and picked the number 3; my son read the question for #2, which was “When do you feel most authentic?”

After answering aloud, you can jot down the card and your impressions in the appropriate position. If you land on spiral activity square, as another example, you may get a card reading: “Select the Ace of Cups from the cups pile. Take a moment to look at the imagery. Dive in, feel the fullness of your heart! Now, tell a story of what you love about life. Record this card on reading sheet.”

Throughout the game, you may be instructed to give a blessing coin to the other player. There are 90 of them, each with an encouraging word on them. Some of these include Vision, Acceptance, Satisfaction, Compassion, Integrity, Protection, Clarity, Magic, Eloquence, Beauty, Skill, Relaxation, Balance, Optimism and so on. My son and I picked five at random, and the two he gave me during game play actually brought tears to my eyes; they were relevant to the question I asked, as well as the cards and insights I had gleaned from game play.

But all was not serious! One instruction in the Tarot Game was a “test your psychic ability” by drawing a Court card WITHOUT looking…and the other player is supposed to “vibe it” to see if the other one guesses it (admittedly, for those not into “woo woo”, an explanation would have been nice!). My son kept looking at his card by accident—THREE times—and we had a continuous belly laughed that lasted minutes.

For those who love to delve deeply into the human psyche and spirit, the Tarot Game holds profound treasures for the open-minded, discerning and patient (expect to play for an hour or more). A truly illuminating tool revealing much about the cards, even seasoned readers will expand their cache of associations and breadth of intuitive insights by playing the Tarot Game.

Having said that, I do have a few minor criticisms: as I mentioned earlier, the Tarot Game does NOT come with a functional Tarot deck with imagery—only a keyword deck that’s intended to help novices. In the instructions, rather than list a handful of decks that would work well with the Tarot Game, the creator offhandedly recommends the “Rider Waite or Thoth decks”.

Huh? The Thoth deck doesn’t even have the illustrated imagery that the creator stresses is all-important to benefit from the Tarot Game (that is, actual people or situations depicted on the Minor Arcana cards). Which leaves just the Rider Waite; but those who buy the Tarot Game won’t know that they need to buy an ADDITIONAL deck (or decks) to play with until they get the box open!

Which has me wondering why Schiffer Books didn’t just create a brand-new Tarot deck to go WITH the Tarot Game (heck, even a stick-figure deck would work fine), rather than waste 78 large cards that only provide 3 brief keywords each (and some of THOSE keywords are repetitive or even specious, but most meanings provided are solid).

If you’re looking for new ways to see and use the cards, I think you’ll be surprised and delighted at the construction of the Tarot Game (the polished colored stones for game pieces are beautiful!), as well as your results from the game play. It’s obvious a lot of thought, time and experimentation went into this one-of-a-kind novelty, and every Tarot enthusiasts should add it to their collection.

For those completely new to Tarot, however, you may be overwhelmed trying to play the Tarot Game on your own…especially if you don’t yet own any Tarot decks. While the creator didn’t offer a list of suitable decks for use with the Tarot Game, I’d be glad to give you a dozen recommendations: