1000 Blank White Cards is a party card game played with cards in which the deck is created as part of the game. Though it has been played by adults in organized groups worldwide, 1000 Blank White Cards is also described as well-suited for children in Hoyle's Rules of Games. Since any game rules are contained on the cards (rather than existing as all-encompassing rules or in a rule book), 1000 Blank White Cards can be considered a sort of nomic. It can be played by any number of players and provides the opportunity for card creation and gameplay outside the scope of a single sitting. Creating new cards during the game, dealing with previous cards' effects, is allowed, and rule modification is encouraged as an integral part of gameplay.</blockquote>
Structure of a card
At its simplest, a card is just that: a physical card, which may or may not have undergone any modifications. Its role in the game is both as itself and as whatever information it carries, which can be changed, erased or amended. The cards used vary widely in size, from the original Vis-Ed brand flash cards, to half or full index cards, to simply sheets of A7 sized paper. Cards may be created with any marking medium and need not conform to any conventions of size or content unless specified within the scope of the game. Cards have been made of a wide range of substances, and modifying the shape or composition of a card is entirely acceptable: the original Vis-Ed box still contains a card, created by Plan 9 From Bell Labs developer Mycroftiv, to which a tablet of zinc has been affixed with adhesive tape; the card reads "Eat This!... In a few minutes, the ZINC will be entering your system." He was inspired by seeing a product at a local coffeehouse: a box of 1000 Vis-Ed brand blank white flash cards. The game physically survived but with the loss of their regular meeting place the majority of the original players fell out of contact with one another, and soon most had moved on to other cities.
The game started to spread as a meme through various social networks, mostly collegiate, in the late 1990s. Aaron Mandel, a former Madison resident, brought the game to Harvard University and started an active playgroup which changed the size of the cards to the more standard half-index dimensions (). Boston players Dave Packer and Stewart King created the first web content representing the game.