Deck is singular not just because it comes with no instructions, goals, or rules for play—which is equally true of toys and puzzles—but Because George Brecht uses all the tools at his disposal to embed a sense of a goal and a way of developing rules in the equipment of play itself. Playing with Deck is crucial to discovering these affordances. In my experience with Deck, there is a basic game that emerges and one that Brecht also seems to have played. In one interview, he describes using Deck in such a way that each player makes up rules “as they go along and then unmake[s] them…each player can criticize the other’s rules, intervene, and change the rules.” Brecht gives an example of one such rule, where “[e]veryone had to take three pictures from three cards and turn them into a joke, improvising.” The invitation of the encyclopedic images and the chance structure of the cards allow Deck to make the transit from toy to puzzle to game, and back again. It gives the player a push and a hint, but does not give them a means or a map. It is rule-governed but without any rules, purposive without any purpose. Deck marks the most accomplished synthesis of Brecht’s thinking about chance, instructions, and uncertainty.
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