See also: List of fictional games#Card games

Many games, including card games, are fabricated by science fiction authors and screenwriters to distance a culture depicted in the story from present-day Western culture. They are commonly used as filler to depict background activities in an atmosphere like a bar or rec room, but sometimes the drama revolves around the play of the game. Some of these games, such as Pyramid from Battlestar Galactica, become real card games as the holder of the intellectual property develops and markets a suitable deck and ruleset for the game, while others, such as "Exploding Snap" from the Harry Potter franchise, lack sufficient descriptions of rules, or depend on cards or other hardware that are infeasible or physically impossible.