Rook
It's from 1906, before you were born.
- Maker
- Parker Brothers / Hasbro
- Type
- Card game
- Debuted
- 1906
- Note
- A 'Christian card game' with no face cards
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About
As of 2026, it's 120 years old.
Rook dealt in around 1906 with a clever bit of marketing: at a time when standard playing cards were associated with gambling and frowned upon by many conservative and religious families, Parker Brothers made a 'wholesome' trick-taking card game using colored numbered cards and a single Rook bird card instead of the traditional 52-card deck.
That rebranding earned it the nickname 'the Christian card game' and made it a beloved fixture in households that wouldn't allow a regular deck — a trick-taking game every bit as strategic as the cards it replaced, just without the poker-table baggage.
Wholesome, trick-taking, and cleverly rebranded, Rook is the card game that snuck real card-game strategy into homes that banned actual playing cards.
