Set won American Mensa's Mensa Select award in 1991 and placed 9th in the 1995 Deutscher Spiele Preis. The shapes are based on those in ISO 5807. The game evolved out of a coding system that the designer used in her job as a geneticist. (All 4 features being constant would imply that the three cards in the set are identical, which is impossible since no cards in the Set deck are identical.) Put another way: For each feature the three cards must avoid having two cards showing one version of the feature and the remaining card showing a different version.įor example, 3 solid red diamonds, 2 solid green squiggles, and 1 solid purple oval form a set, because the shadings of the three cards are all the same, while the numbers, the colors, and the shapes among the three cards are all different.įor any set, the number of features that are constant (the same on all three cards) and the number of features that differ (different on all three cards) may break down as: all 4 features differing or 1 feature being constant and 3 differing or 2 constant and 2 differing or 3 constant and 1 differing. For each one of the four categories of features - color, number, shape, and shading - the three cards must display that feature as either a) all the same, or b) all different. In the game, certain combinations of three cards are said to make up a 'set'.

a card with three striped green diamonds) appears as a card precisely once in the deck. Each possible combination of features (e.g. The deck consists of 81 unique cards that vary in four features across three possibilities for each kind of feature: number of shapes (one, two, or three), shape (diamond, squiggle, oval), shading (solid, striped, or open), and color (red, green, or purple).

Set (stylized as SET or SET!) is a real-time card game designed by Marsha Falco in 1974 and published by Set Enterprises in 1991. Visualization, logical reasoning, ability to focus These cards each have a unique number, symbol, shading, and color, and are thus a 'set'.

Card game where cards are in sequence