thumb|270px|1965 edition box art
Nuclear War is a collectible common-deck card game designed by Douglas Malewicki and originally published in 1965 that is a satirical simulation of an end-of-the-world scenario fought mostly with nuclear weapons. It is currently (as of 2012) published by Flying Buffalo, and has inspired several expansions.
Development
Doug Malewicki designed the game in 1964. The game was rereleased in the late 1970s by Flying Buffalo, which released the two expansion sets Nuclear Escalation and Nuclear Proliferation. During the late 1990s, Flying Buffalo also released a 47 card set in randomized shrinkwrapped booster packs covered by a title card.
In the December 1993 edition of Dragon (Issue 200), Allen Varney considered Nuclear War a classic. "It’s a sin for a multi-player design to throw out a player before the game is over, but in this venerable game, that’s the whole point."
Scrye, in 2003, described it as a "classic off-color game". Though its popularity had waned by the 1990s, they noted "it's still one of the best card games out there."
- 1981 Games 100 in Games
- Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
- The Playboy Winner's Guide to Board Games
Awards
- Nuclear Escalation - Charles Roberts Award for Best Science Fiction Boardgame of 1983
- Nuclear Proliferation - Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame of 1992
- Nuclear War - inducted into the Origins Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame
In 1999 Pyramid magazine named Nuclear War as one of The Millennium's Best Card Games. Editor Scott Haring said "Back when people were well-and-truly scared of the possibility of nuclear vaporization (I guess today either the threat is lessened, or it's become old hat), Nuclear War dared to make fun the possibility of mankind's dreaded nightmare via a card game."