A pack of cards is based on a theme, such as cars, aircraft, books, boats, dinosaurs, or characters from a popular film or television series.

If the theme is about a TV series or film, the cards include characters and the data varying from things like strength and bravery to fashion and looks, depending on the criteria.

The topics tended to reflect this, and included military hardware, modes of transport and racing cars.

The original Top Trumps was launched in 1978,[1] with eleven different packs selling at 50p each, published by a company named Dubreq.

Winning Moves UK split their packs into categories based on licenses and the age range they are aimed at.

There are multiple football packs released each year, for clubs including Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.

One-off packs for Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Hull City, and Everton have also been released.

These were given out at political party conferences, and featured politicians such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

[5] Many of the newer packs (late 2008 onwards) have a "Summit Challenge" game on the reverse of the bar code card.

English-speaking countries have sold some of their packs through the online Top Trumps shop and were unavailable elsewhere.

[8] United Arab Emirates has released a pack based on the animated TV series Freej.

Other countries that Winning Moves make Top Trumps for are: Canada, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Iran.

For example, the popular US television series 24 has a Top Trumps pack available, but its STT card is only available with the purchase of special-stickered season 4 of 24 DVDs.

One other Doctor Who Super Top Trump card was released with a very special edition of the Beano magazine.

A number of STT cards were made available free of charge to members of the Top Trumps club through its website, prior to 2006.

In 2006, and working in conjunction with the Haynes publishing group, Winning Moves launched a line of books under the Top Trumps brand, based around the design and concept of the card game.

Subjects included sharks, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Racing cars, Motorbikes, Fighter Aircraft, Cars, Doctor Who (Series 1 and 2 together, and Series 3 & 4), Dinosaurs, Airliners, Marvel Heroes, Animals, Tanks, Transformers and Football.

Games made include: Football Legends, Star Wars, Gumball 3000 and Moto GP and Doctor Who.

These are: At a toy fair, Winning Moves UK revealed that it had started to make a Top Trumps 3D version with cards whose pictures became 3D.

For example, the 3D tarantula from the Bugs collection can also be made to dance, slide on ice, and hunt among other things.

There are various Top Trumps Showcase cards released as part of the Hamleys 3D announcement event that can display images.

The packs are: Movies, TV, Pop Stars, Top Toys, Sporting Heroes and WOW.

[18] Mid 2009, it was announced that Winning Moves UK have been in discussions with parties to try and create a version of Top Trumps for the iPhone.

[23] There is also a Super Mini Top Trumps of Disney Pixar, Cars, SpongeBob SquarePants, Star Wars and Baby Animals.

[25] This also led to a few promotions including giving a couple getting married a chance to get into their own wedding pack[26] and a special WOW card was made to be played with the Top Trumps Tournament was in the packs of Top Trumps.

[27] They were also giving out giant Top Trumps cards to people who were camping out to see the wedding[28] and giving out free packs of Royal Wedding Top Trumps to those caught on TV showing the giant cards.

The BBC web site has Top Trumps variants with themes of snooker, Buffy, Doctor Who and EastEnders.

A top trumps style card game called "Outrage" was also included in The Mighty Boosh Future Sailors Tour Deluxe DVD set.

Outset Media released a themed version for animal poop called "Dung Deck" where players can battle statistics for frequency, hardness, length, width, smelliness, and yuck factor of an animal's 'business'.

Companies sometimes create their own decks of cards based on their areas of expertise using the same style as Top Trumps.