Which game is deeper: Grand Theft Auto or Passage?   

Which game is more visually beautiful: Pac-Man or Asteroids?   

Which game had a bigger impact: Tetris or DOOM?

Do you love games? Do you love arguing with your gamer friends about them? Then the Metagame is for you. The Metagame is a card game about videogames. It is simple to learn and fun to play. It can be played by a small group of game fans, a classroom of students, or by thousands at a conference.

You play the game by combining game cards - videogame trading cards - with comparison cards that say things like "Which game tells a better story" or "Which game is more of a work of art?" 

You challenge another player and each of you has a couple minutes to argue one side. Any nearby bystanders judge and vote on the winner.  For more information about the game, visit the project website at: metagame.localno12.com. 

The Metagame has evolved over the last year through many prototypes and iterations. It premiered at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and was played by thousands during the week-long conference from Feb 26-March 4, 2011.

Due to the wild success of the game at the conference, we are turning to Kickstarter to make a “home version” for people to play in their homes, classrooms, and at conferences and events.

We're using the funds to print full decks of the Metagame with more than 100 cards that we'll send to our supporters and also distribute online.  

The Metagame gets people talking about games in smart ways. It is great for classes about games, for opinionated game fans, or for people that like playing social games. And how cool is it to have your own set of videogame trading cards?

For more information about The Metagame, take a look at this Local No.12 blog post about the design principles behind the game and a postmortem about how things went at GDC. Eric has also blogged about the history of the Metagame and how the game design has evolved over several versions of the project. 

The Metagame supports critical discussion of videogame aesthetics. It is intended for educational purposes.