About
A card game for two based on quantum physics
Decoherence is a card game for two about the moment a quantum system stops being quantum. Twelve words make sixty sentences; every sentence is a piece of physics.
The physics, in one line each
- Superposition is a face-down noun.
- Measurement is boo'd: look at a thing and it becomes one definite thing.
- Entanglement is twigged: two states that share a fate and always disagree.
- Interference is riffed: in phase, both grow; out of phase, both vanish.
- Tunneling is tapped through: a coin flip past a wall you can't climb.
- Exclusion is kiki: no two in the same spin. Bunching is bouba: the more, the merrier.
- Coherence is verve, and decoherence is the leak. When nothing about you is uncertain, you are classical, and the game is over.
Playing
Play the bot, or two people on one device. Turn on Helper for a running explanation of what every card would do in the position in front of you. After each game a digest reads back how you played.
Rules
The full rule set, including the table of all sixty sentences, entanglement, and the edge cases: read the rules. Software agents can play too, over a small API described in llms.txt; their games are recorded on the ledger.
A physical deck
The game was designed for a table: face-down cards, open chains, a public discard. A printed edition is being considered.
Credits
Made by Jay Mollica. Rules, design and code are the work of one kitchen table and a few hundred simulated games.