I have played the game many times. It still seems like magic.
Out of the 8 symbols on each card in the card deck, there are always two symbols that match when you compare two or more cards. I know it has something to do with math (magic) But how?
In: Mathematics
https://www.petercollingridge.co.uk/blog/mathematics-toys-and-games/dobble/#:~:text=The%20real%20Dobble%20deck%20has,total%20of%201485%20different%20symbols.
Here’s a guy who crunched out a bunch of math and analysis about Dobble. There’s more than one way to make a deck that works, and he says if you have *s* symbols on each card then you can have up to *s*^2 – *s* + 1 cards in the deck and still have one duplicate in every possible pairing, if you lay out the symbols correctly.
With 2 symbols per card your max deck size is 3, with 3 symbols it’s 7, with 4 symbols it’s 13, with 5 symbols it’s 21, with 6 (the kid’s game) it’s 31, with 7 it’s 43, and for 8 symbols the limit is 57. (He calls these max deck sizes *Dobble numbers*; not sure if that’ll catch on.)
Instead of 57, they made the adult game with only 55 cards; guess they thought that sounded better. Or maybe it allowed them to have one less page in each print batch.
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