Notes from an exhibition - Timeless strategy classics

 

Long before the age of cardboard and printing, games were played on boards made of wood or more valuable materials and used stones, beads, seeds, or carved figures. These were times primarily for abstract games, confronting two opponents in duels of the mind. What they had in common was a simplicity of rules that can be learned in minutes, but allowing for deep strategies and refined tactics that take years to master.  

Go. I discovered it in the 1980s, thanks to the French magazine Jeux & Stratégie. I was fascinated by this ancient oriental game with a minimalist, black-and-white aesthetic. A considerable board, with nineteen by nineteen intersections, starts the game completely empty. Total freedom. The stones are placed alternately, but they no longer move once placed. Pressuring territories, conceding others. Between short-term gains and lasting influences. Action and passivity. Space and time intertwined. With its own language, which sounds exotic to Western ears, long before manga and anime became widespread. Joseki, Ko, Tesuji, Atari!

Mancala. Sow first, to then reap in a circular movement between the spaces on our side of the board and our opponent's. Picking up seeds on our side and distributing them, one by one, to the following spaces, often stopping on the opposite side and even going around the board more than once. It appeals to the senses, between handling the seeds and their characteristic sound hitting the wooden concavities or other seeds. It's a game of complex calculations, especially for those used to more linear thinking, but it's exciting nonetheless. And a concept that you may find in many recent board games.

Chess. It's undoubtedly the game I've played most often, undoubtedly because I've practiced it competitively for many years! I'll leave you with a free translation of the words of Joel Lautier, Grand Master of the sport, in the Larousse du Jeux d'Échecs: ‘What does the game of chess mean to those who play it assiduously? (...) For my part, I would answer the curious but hasty questioner that, for the competitive player that I am, it is a game in substance but a sport in form. If he has more time, I'll tell him about the rigor of the preparation before the game, the intense concentration needed to accurately calculate the variants, the deep aesthetic joy of a combination that reveals itself, the absolute self-control required at the critical moment when the fate of the game swings, and the patience needed to break down the opponent's last defenses one by one. If he becomes my confidant, I'll also tell him about the anguish of the fight, about those terrible defeats that are like so many little deaths in the precise moment.’

Notes from an exhibition - Words and Cards

 

Of words and cards. Familiar elements, extremely portable, requiring little space or even no table. No wonder they form part of so many games and are even the main, if not the only, ingredient in many. With a long history as play elements, they are still constantly reinvented, building bridges between old habits and new experiences.

Codenames. To play in two teams, combining deduction, strategy, and the knowledge of the partners. Associate ideas, give a single word as a clue to discover several in the grid, hoping the partners are on the same page. But it turns out that only some of the words correspond to our spies, others to those of the opponents, still others to innocent civilians, and one is the assassin, to be avoided at all costs. A game for everyone by Vlaada Chvátil, celebrating a decade of existence and well-deserved success.

Just One. Another variation in word guessing. There is just one team, and the aim is to get one of the players to answer correctly. The problem is that each remaining player chooses a clue word in secret, and identical clues are eliminated! What is the best strategy: to go for the obvious and risk the elimination of clues, or search for more elaborate clues, but which may need others to convey the intended meaning? A game from Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter.

Scrabble. A true classic, created by Alfred Butts in the first half of the last century. Building words, letter by letter, in a dynamic crossword puzzle. But with a scoring system that rewards the strategy of occupying the space and the quest to reach bonus squares that double or triple the score of the letter placed there or of the whole word using that space. It was played as recently as yesterday, in a true example of games accessible to players over 90!

The Crew - The quest for planet nine. A reinvention of trick-taking games in a cooperative format, with missions to complete as a team, but hindered by minimal communication. Win a trick with the lowest card? Winning certain cards in a specific sequence and by predefined players? All this, and much more, is in this game by Thomas Sing.

Arboretum. It combines the placement of tree cards to create paths of the same species in our individual arboretum, with the control of each species using the cards left in hand at the end of the game. Guaranteed dilemma: to play a card to extend the paths or keep it in hand to vie for control. An original game by Dan Cassar, with beautiful illustrations by Philippe Guérin, Chris Quilliams, and Beth Sobel.

Whales Destroying the World. Bluff is king in this game of hidden roles and unusual name, where you don't initially know the identities of allies and opponents. This was my first collaboration in the world of board games, translating the rules into Portuguese when the game was searching for funding on Kickstarter.

Magic the Gathering. It is one of the card games with an unusual notoriety status. A duel in magical worlds, using cards with their names and powers. Its mechanics promote a high level of interaction, allowing you to activate cards, attack, defend, counterattack, increase or interrupt effects, and even interrupt the interruptions themselves. Fuelled by a continuous edition of new cards and sets, it allows you to build customized decks to your own taste, knowledge, and wallet. Strategising before and during the game. Playing in tournaments. Collecting the cards. It is hard to believe Richard Garfield's idea is thirty years old!

Traditional cards. Poker. Tarot. Decks of different sizes and composition. A multitude of games for all tastes, handed down orally, collated in magazines and books, available on the internet. With regional or national variants. Fitting in a pocket. Without text, facilitating global sharing. They can even be used for magic tricks or complex hand manipulations, should you have the skills!

Notes from an exhibition - The games leave the flatland!

 

Game boards and cardboard pieces are common components of many games, evoking the flats of a life in two dimensions. But it does not have to be that way. Neither in games that use  boards as an essential part, nor in those that are played on a table but without a board. Examples abound, spanning decades.

Um para todos. One for everyone. A game that already featured in the blog. A matter of balance, always in a critical condition. Choosing between safer or riskier positions. Trying to condition your opponents' choices. And, when disaster strikes, picking up all the fallen clowns. Created in the early 1970s by Theo and Ora Coster, founders of Theora Design, Israel. 

Quarto. One of the many derivations of Tic-Tac-Toe. Quarto because the line-up consists of four elements. But with many layers, since each piece has four attributes: light or dark colour, short or tall, with circular or quadrangular base, hollow or full. With an added detail: you are the one who chooses the piece your opponent will place! A game by Blaise Muller (1991).

Tokyo Highway. The game that aroused the most curiosity in visitors, no doubt about that! An installation of sober shapes and colours, punctuated by colourful small cars. How is this played, people asked? It is a mixture of strategy and dexterity. Building your own road, with segments of the same same size and never flat. Building pillars so that you can build overpasses and underpasses, crossing the roads that have already been laid out. Avoiding obstacles. By Naotaka Shimamoto and Yoshiaki Tomioka (2018).

Santorini. In shades of white and blue, the eye-catching image of the Greek island bearing the name, borrowed by this boardgame. The island takes shape as the buildings are erected. First, we move one of our builders. Then, we place a floor of a house, building one floor at a time, to be topped with a blue dome. The aim: to be the first to reach the top. With the possibility of playing the role of mythological figures, each with their own power. An invention by Gord! (2016).

Photosynthesis. A game of light and shadows, literally. With the Sun rotating around the board, the trees growing, releasing their seeds, and casting shadows, which prevent other trees from growing. A constant struggle, anticipating the next Sun rotation, attempting to secure space, aiming to make the trees grow, and then cutting them down. Find out more, here. A dream by Hjalmar Hach (2017) with the art of Sabrina Miramon.

Notes from an exhibition - The preparation

 

First, a reconnaissance tour of the venue. Then came the measurements and sketches, numbers and shapes. Two triple display units with drawers, seven vertical units with four shelves each, five cubes, and two large tables with glass tops. Lengths, widths, and heights. Imposing limits for the games to be displayed, or, more appropriately, parts of games. Yes, because some games require a lot of space to be seen in their entirety, or to be played; others even develop in three dimensions.

The process evolved intertwined: the arrangement of the displays within the exhibition room, the themes for the modules, the choice of games, and the configuration of each game. Each part influences the others. Blueprints were drawn on the computer, represented on cardboard over the table, and mapped on the floor. Boxes were opened, and components scrutinized. Games were assembled and disassembled, their presence in the exhibition room imagined. Photographing alternatives for selection and to guide the on-site assembly. A construction site at home.

Themes and games. The games leave the flatland! Words and cards, raw material for games. Timeless strategy classics. Boardgames intersecting literature, cinema, and digital games. Agents of change. Books and miniatures. Oil, CO2, and knowledge. The development of a game. What game am I? Cloud of words.

Then, I had to think of several other elements: a slide show to support the opening and to be viewed by visitors, informative texts, posters and leaflets, content for web pages, and a list of insurance purposes. Fortunately, I could rely on Margarida's expertise to make up for my lack of experience in the field, and on the team from the University’s Library to produce materials and for the installation.

Not to be forgotten on the to-do list was the timely invitation to a North American game designer for a long-distance conversation and the preparation required as a facilitator, revisiting games, former interviews, and texts. 

Time was running out, but the exhibition was taking shape!

Notes from an exhibition - The concept

 

Eighteen months had passed since the invitation, amidst those strange times of intermittent relationship with the pandemic. The conditions were finally in place to resume the project. The exhibition remained part of the American Corner initiatives held by the Library of the University of Aveiro, but now with an increased dimension: the Hélène Beauvoir room as a larger and more accessible venue; additional displays with different sizes, meaning more games; and the possibility of having a long-distance conversation with an American guest. An added challenge!

It was, therefore, time to work on the exhibition concept. My eyes roamed the shelves. Boxes of different colours and shapes. Some are brighter, whereas others show marks of age and use. Games from the current year, games a few years old, and older games. Evoking memories of distant analogue gaming times, long before digital arrived. After all, I am a creature from the 2BC era: Before Catan, even Before the Computer. This starkly contrasts the discovery of board games well after video games, made by creatures born in the digital age.

And so, the motto was created! Gaming unplugged: five decades of board games. My board games, from a personal perspective, rather than games intended to portray this industry, that releases new games at astonishing speed. The aim is to show different types of games, their relationship with their own time, and the diversity of themes, processes, components, and materials. With a wink to the process of creating games. Organised in modules to guide visitors across the space. With summarised information, enough for a first contact. With a hint of interactivity.

Next step: Defining and organising the modules.

Notes from an exhibition – The invitation

 

Games do not usually leave the house, except for family gatherings, holiday trips or a few days here and there. It is true that a few, such as the travel backgammon, some decks of cards and poker dice, have travelled thousands of kilometres on planes, trains, cars and bicycles. Some have even visited places of inspiration for their creation, such as Glen More's pieces that have been to Loch Ness and other places in Scotland. However, generally speaking, they only know the route between the shelves where they lay and the tables where they are played, not getting to know that many people.

That was so until the day when, during one of our conversations, Margarida Almeida asked me, ‘Do you want to organise an exhibition of board games?’. My first reaction was of surprise. I had never looked at my games as a collection, let alone a collection to be displayed and with interest to others. They were just games, to be used in several ways. Well, come to think of it, there was indeed something of a collector's approach, with games being bought with the full knowledge that they would not be played much. They were purchased primarily for the theme, the processes, the complexity, or the art. However, these were one-off decisions devoid of a specific overarching purpose. 

The initial surprise was shortly followed by a series of questions, a sign that the challenge had been accepted. How can you conceive an exhibition starting from zero experience? For which target audience? With what main theme and possible ramifications? Allowing for which degree of interaction? How is the space to be managed? How do we organise the individual displays, and how do we set up the games? What will be needed in terms of support materials and information? There were more questions than answers, but I knew I could count on Margarida's experience and creativity! 

At the same time, however, dark shadows were looming over the world. Shadows that approached from afar, transforming any sense of normality as they passed through. And they inevitably arrived, consigning the life that resisted them to a confinement that extended, in an indefinite suspension, into an unreal reality. The year was two thousand twenty, and the pandemic had arrived. All that remained was to wait for a future.

From six to sixty

 

Six. Just about the age of the first experiences and memories with board games, that have been preceded by other games, those of colours and shapes, words and numbers, paper and pencil, pieces and dice.

Sixty. Years with games. Years of games. Discovering, learning, explaining, experimenting. In family, always. With friends. With those met for the first time around a game table, in any city, regardless of borders. 

Six. The years of this blog. Years of discovery. Groups and conventions, people who imagine games before they become one, the different roles hidden behind a game box, the industry that brings games to our tables.

Sixty minus six. An essay on the years before the blog, written for issue 3 of the fanzine Joga Forte, one of the many initiatives of ARTMATRIZ, Cultural and Artistic Association. A fitting way to mark this date. Here it is, adapted from the original version.

From the hobby to the industry

Games. Always. For as long as I can remember. From around the time of the first human footstep on the moon. It runs in the family! Dexterity games, such as the nail or the five stones during long beach afternoons. A Mikado over the table. Bottlecap races in makeshift circuits. The teetotum spinning round and round, between luck and bad luck. Playing with words, as in the Americano and the Stop. Making deductions with paper and pencil, in naval battles of still ships. Playing with cards, in the Battle, Burro, Bisca, or Sueca. Questions and answers, with O Sabichão. And the first board games, such as Vamos às Compras (Let's Go Shopping), or A Volta ao Mundo (Around the World). 

The offer was scarce in Portugal, back in the 1970s, and consisted mainly of games published by Majora and later Karto, the leading Portuguese publishers at that time. Titles such as Monopoly, Table Soccer, Formula 1, Munique 74, Bolsa (Stock Exchange), Petróleo (Oil), As Eleições e os Partidos (The Elections and the Parties), or Hóquei em Patins (Roller Hockey), make their way to the table, at home or at friends' homes.  I would create games that did not exist, using game parts, Lego components, maps and dice. Soloing multi-handed. The small pieces taking on a life of their own to replace the absent players. A different world in every game!

The abstract games were beginning to reclaim their own space, mainly thanks to chess. So much strategy behind such simple rules! Then, came the competition play, and that lasted for decades, with varying intensity, but that's a different story.

Back then, time flowed at a different pace and the summer holidays lasted three months! Plenty of time, a shortage of games, and a regular partner like Eduardo were the right ingredients to explore our games to the limit and beyond. Simulating championships, the great cycling tours, or campaigns. Introducing asymmetric play so that real-world characters would tell the story while we acted as mere facilitators and spectators. Every play meticulously recorded in small notebooks. 

Games that were of a 'different' kind usually arrived from abroad, from Spain for example, in that era before Portugal entered the EEC. The first truly complex games, in the form of the first military recreations. Panzerblitz, Operation Barbarossa, Air Force, and later the tense negotiations of Diplomacy.

Around that time, I also discovered the games with miniatures, thanks to a magazine named História (History), which contained a section, authored by Victor Amorim, with rules for recreating tactical combats of the Second World War with 1/72 miniatures.

But it was another magazine, the French Jeux & Strátegie, that opened so many more windows! It arrived every two months at a kiosk well in the heart of Guimarães' historic centre, A magazine with the latest news from markets that were still inaccessible. Articles on games of all kinds, from board games to role-playing games, from calculating machines (!) to the first personal computers, from theory and strategy analysis to puzzles and labyrinths. And always with a centerfold original game, to detach, cut and glue the counters, and... to play! The stuff dreams were made of...

The 1990s were marked by an increase in the number of other players at home, which rose to three 😊. It was also marked by trips abroad, which allowed increased access to ‘other’ games, adding to the ones we already had. Places like L'Impensé Radical, next to the Luxembourg Gardens, or Jeux Descartes, both in Paris, or a store in central London (was it Just Games?). Civilisation, Ace of Aces, Speed Circuit, Squad Leader, Catan, Go, Mancala, Quarto. 

By the turn of the millennium, the time for games had substantially decreased, although the collection continued to grow, slowly. Carcassonne, Alhambra, Keltis. Yet, I didn't realise, at all, that a revolution was taking place in my lifelong hobby... 

It wasn't until 2018, when I decided to create this blog with texts and photographs about ‘my’ games, and was looking for ways to publicise it, that I discovered the 'new' reality of board games. Social media groups, dedicated websites, crowdfunding platforms, local meetings and conventions, content producers, creators, the whole industry. People. Lots of people. Accessible. With names. A far cry from the days when you only played with acquaintances and game boxes displayed the publisher's name only.

That was shortly followed by attending my first convention, InvictaCon 2018 (Gondomar, Portugal) and the meetings of the Boardgamers of Aveiro. And it took no more than another small step until engaging in the first translation of a rulebook, for the game Whales Destroying the World, by the Czech company TimeSlugStudio.

I was not yet fully aware that I was moving towards the industry. But the stars were gradually aligning. Vaguely and imprecisely. Very much in line with the motto chosen for the blog: Wandering in the land of games! Well, that's material for a second chronicle. 

Until then, happy gaming!