Matching games are

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

s that require players to match similar elements. Participants need to find a match for a word, picture, or card. For example, students place 30 word cards; composed of 15 pairs, face down in random order. Each person turns over two cards at a time, with the goal of turning over a matching pair, by using their memory.

Examples

Type of game that may involve matching include: *

Dominoes Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...

* Board games such as

mahjong solitaire Mahjong solitaire (also known as Shanghai solitaire, electronic or computerized mahjong, solitaire mahjong or simply mahjong) is a single-player matching game that uses a set of mahjong tiles rather than cards. It is more commonly played on a ...

* Card games such as

Concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', an ...

rummy Rummy is a group of matching-card games notable for similar gameplay based on matching cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build '' melds'' which can be either sets (three or four of a k ...

Tile-matching video game A tile-matching video game is a type of puzzle video game where the player manipulates tiles in order to make them disappear according to a matching criterion. In many tile-matching games, that criterion is to place a given number of tiles of the ...

Types of matching

Most matching games are objective, with correct answers in the rules for what counts as a match, pair, etc. Some however, like Dixit or

Apples to Apples ''Apples to Apples'' is a party game originally published by Out of the Box Publishing Inc., and now by Mattel. Players start with a hand of seven "red apple" cards, which feature nouns. A player is selected to be the first judge, and that judge ...

, are about subjective matches picked by one or more judge players. Here the correlation between a match holds value only as other players decide it, but rules dictate who will make those decisions and when.

Matching card games

In card games of the matching group, players play cards in turn to a wastepile or tableau according to certain rules. A player unable to play a card by the rules is usually penalised by having to draw one or more extra cards, the aim usually being to shed all one's cards. There are three main sub-groups of matching card games:''Card Games: Matching Games''
at

pagat.com Pagat.com is a website containing rules to hundreds of card games from all over the world. Maintained by John McLeod, it contains information for traditional, commercial, and newly invented card games from all over the world. It has been described ...

. Retrieved 23 November 2022. *

Stops Group The following is a glossary of terms used in card games. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon slang terms. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific (e.g. specific to Bridge, Hearts, Poker or Rummy), ...

. Cards are played in ascending sequence, often in suit *

Eights Group Crazy Eights is a Card game#Shedding games, shedding-type card game for two to seven players and the best known American member of the Eights Group which also includes Pig (card game), Pig and Spoons (card game), Spoons. The object of the game i ...

. Cards are played to a single pile, matching the previous card in suit or rank. * Layout Group. Cards are added to a tableau or layout or moved around it in accordance with the rules.

References

{{Game-stub Games of mental skill