Number of players

3 to 10

What you need

A deck of Earth from Space cards.
If you didn’t pick up a set of these at Discover Space in Manchester, you can print a set for your own use (or multiple sets for classroom use).
Download single-sided Earth from Space cards.
Download double-sided Earth from Space cards.
You may NOT amend the cards or reproduce for commercial purposes.

How to play

Deal out all the cards. Players may look at those in their hands.

  • The first player chooses a card from their hand and describes the picture.
  • Other players who think they have one similar place it face down on the table.
  • Shuffle the cards that have been put on the table and then turn them face up.
  • The player who has described the card shows theirs and chooses the one they think is the most similar to it.
  • Put the ‘almost matching’ pair to one side – they are not used again in the game.
  • Turn over the non-matching cards and shuffle them.
  • The players who put down cards that were not matching each pick one up.
  • The next player then chooses a card to describe …

The winner is the first player to get rid of all their cards.

Which card from the bottom row is the best match to the one on the top?

To make it quicker

Deal a certain number of cards per player and play with just these cards, or discard all cards at the end of each round and have those who played non-matching cards pick up one from the top of the pile of cards that were not dealt out.

You could agree to play a certain number of rounds (using all cards or just some) – just make sure everyone gets the same number of goes at being the person who does the describing.

To make it easier

Use the number of spots of each colour to decide which card is the closest to that described.

To make it harder

Have a list or group of taboo words that players cannot use when describing their card: for example, colours.