It runs in the family!

Family breaks, either in a restricted or extended format, mean games. They have always meant! Filling afternoons or evenings, sometimes afternoons and evenings, more rarely mornings.

One bag from one branch of the family, another bag from the other, full of boxes exhibiting signs of wear, testimonies of good use, and some brand-new boxes as well, still waiting for the première. Inside the boxes some light, medium or heavier games, with short or long duration. An array of options, to fit in between meals and walks, considering the availability of the big table, and the number of players.

And so it was, in this Christmas season! This time with more premières than repetitions.

Michal Golebiowski, Jetpack Joyride, Krakow: Lucky Duck Games, 2018

From video games to the tabletop. A real-time race, where players don’t take turns, aiming to be the first to get out of the labs. Take a tile and put it in your lab rooms, to guide Barry in his way out. Fast! Collect coins, avoid obstacles, fulfill missions. Eye, hand, route. Faster than the others. Freeze! Everyone stops for a moment, except who gave the order. Unfreeze! The race resumes. Pressure is the name of the game. Fun guaranteed. And one of my last collaborations of 2019, making the rules available in Portuguese.

P. Vojtech & J. Pavlásek, Whales Destroying the World, Liberec: Time Slug Studio, 2019

From one of the last to the first translation, when this card-based game was still in the Kickstarter campaign. Whales are forming armies to invade and destroy the world. It's up to the super-spies to avoid it. But who's who? Identities are secret! The bluff reigns. Groups of whales are formed, but they can also be dispersed. There are superheroes helping spies. There are pacifist turtles. A card game that allows you to gather up to 6 whales, I mean, players around the table.

Jean-Louis Roubira, Dixit, Poitiers: Libellud, 2008-2012

Illustrated cards. Imagination on the loose. A narrator per turn, saying a phrase, a word or even a sound, associated with the card he secretly chose. Which will be mixed with the cards selected by each player, based on the same motto. Who will guess the narrator's card? Who knows him best? But beware, if everyone gets it right, or if everyone fails, the narrator loses! One need to measure well the clue to disclose. And who will be able to get others to choose their card instead of the narrator's? Always a favorite for group playing.

Poker

Tradition says there will always be a long session featuring Risk or Poker. In the summer, Risk was the one. Now it was Poker's turn. An elimination game, trying to read your opponents. Small blind, big blind. A patience game, where you must practice the waiting. Pass. A game in which one must resist temptation to always be under the spotlight, in which one must resist curiosity. Fold. Observation, calculation, probabilities, potential and real gains and losses, position on the table. Vary, improvise. Feel the chips, their sound on the table. Raise. The moment of truth, confronting hands, learning, drawing conclusions when winning, losing or even drawing. A lucky strike. Bluff. Fear. Caution. Risk. Certainty. Call.

M. Kiesling &A. Schmidt, Heaven & Ale, Hamburg: Eggert Spiele, 2018. Mas Que Oca.

Another première, this game of beer crafting monks. Making the best beer requires a capable master brewer, prime ingredients and, above all, a well-balanced mix. It's unworthy to have an excellent barley when the water is low-grade. It takes money to acquire ingredients, more money for better ingredients. Then one must know where to best place them in the fields, either in the shade, to raise money by selling it, or in the sunlight, for them to develop, improving our beverage. You also need monks working in the fields. And, further still, to collect barrels. A nice bunch of options to choose from, each turn, while competing for the very same resources, and where placement and timing are paramount. To play again soon, no doubt, since a single match serves only to learn the basics and grasp the subtleness! And, then, there is an expansion waiting, in which, in addition to everything else, we must distribute the beer, by wagon, to the taverns.


There are a few more games waiting for the first time, one more just arrived, and many more to repeat, in upcoming sessions. And I think I should get some games for player counts over six!

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 10: Home again

Back home. After a journey with many names. After this quest in search of knowledge, in search of more knowledge. On the outside but also inside myself. About this world and about other worlds. About what we see and what we can merely devise.

I look at the bookshelf, now fuller of books, telling part of the story, being also a part of this very same story. Carrying the knowledge transferred from masters to pages, and from pages to other masters, to apprentices, to the learners we will always be. Across the earth and across time. Made present and made memory.

I look back, and I see, in the distance, the point from where I set sail.

This place, to which I now return, it still is the same but also a distinct one. Yes, it still is in the same location, there are streets and houses that look unchanged, perhaps just a little bit older. But the city has changed, the people have changed, the uses and fashions are no longer quite as they were before. And I also have changed, I believe even more, in the ways of looking, understanding and being in this world.

Consequence of the travels, the meetings, the conversations, the experiences, the readings, the thoughts, the companies, the loneliness. The result of the knowledge I came across with, of the knowledge that became part of me.

I look back, and I see the long way I covered.

This trip ends here. At least as far as it concerns roads, carriages and inns. There is another journey that continues, as long as the mind allows it. In search of knowledge. To unveil mysteries, to share knowledge, to make use of it. In search of more knowledge. Still.

The end.

This was a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 

PAW in Croatia

Nemesis on the table, in Croatia, by Una Montag

Playing in Croatia.
Or in outer space.
Trying to survive the Invaders.

Thanks Una!


Step in and leave your PAW print - Playing Around the World - and follow the PAW tag.
Send a photo of a gaming session, the game title, your name, city, country (and, if you feel like, a short sentence about the game and or a photo of the city) to gamesinbw@gmail.com.

Behind the camera

Quoridor

Cluedo

Concordia

Carcassonne

Just some photos, from yesterday's Boardgame Meeting, hosted by Centro Universitário de Fé e Cultura, Aveiro, Portugal. With some classics on the table.

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 9: In the presence of masters

Their names and faces swept across my mind, as old acquaintances. We have, indeed, met. On a library bookshelf, in a book, in a lesson, in a conversation, through a disciple of theirs, in the drafts scribbled and scattered all over my desk. Nights and days, months, years, decades, centuries of knowledge. Created, disregarded, recreated, denied, developed, accumulated, built upon, transmitted. Across time and geographies. Until reaching us. Until reaching me!

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, who you probably know best by his pseudonym, Paracelsus. He learned from the monks, studied at my Alma Mater, Basel, traveled, also him in search for more. Crossing disciplines, medicine, alchemy, physics and astrology.

Galileo Galilei, who, from Pisa, Padua and Florence, saw much further away. He observed craters on the Moon, satellites orbiting around Jupiter and spots in the Sun.  A sidereal messenger, Sidereus nuncius, as in the title of one of his works. And he saw differently, trying to put the Earth, and the earthly ones, in their proper place in the Universe, far from the center, despite the established system and beliefs.

Blaise Pascal, entangled in mathematics, in calculus, in the calculation of small parts. Theorizing about probabilities, seemingly because of some friends and some questions about games. Luck and bad luck, outcomes, gains and losses, the good and the optimal. Combining mechanics and calculus, in a new machine, La Pascaline. Continuing the works on pressure and vacuum, on Torricelli's wake.

Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A pioneer woman in this men’s world. The first woman ever to be invited to meetings at the Royal Society. Naturalism instead of mechanicism. Taking us to other worlds, to her Blazing World, a futuristic work of fiction with a woman as leading protagonist, the North Pole as a gate, talking animals and submarines.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who began by dedicating himself to the study of mathematics and physics, but whose interests and contributions are so vast that it is difficult to enlisted them all. You may not know that he also worked as a librarian, living among books, seeking to broaden collections, and to make them more orderly. Rationally, philosophically, he believed that this world of ours, created by the Master, is none but the best of all conceivable worlds that could have been created.

Maria Margarethe Winkelmann, Kirch by marriage, passionate about observation and astronomy, at a time when much of the study and science was not accessible to women. She discovered, herself, a comet, during the work with her husband, a reputed astronomer and mathematician. In his own words "Early in the morning the sky was clear and starry. Some nights before I had observed a variable star, and my wife wanted to find and see it for herself. In so doing she found a comet in the sky. At which time she woke me and I found that it was indeed a comet ... I was surprised that I had not seen it the night before.".

Fahrenheit. Daniel Gabriel. Between science and technology, physicist and creator. Developing, testing, perfecting. Shaping the glass, which he knew how to blow. Making instruments, seeking the rigour of measurements. Having become aware of works on the properties of mercury, he envisioned how to best measure temperature, replacing alcohol with this material, in thermometers.

Names, among many others, who came before these or along with them.
Names, to be followed by many more.

(to be continued)


On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 
.
(*) In https://thelifeofmariawinkelmann.weebly.com/a-comet-is-discovered.html
References: Wikipedia.

PAW in New York City

Union Square, Manhattan, NYC, February 2012, by Miguel Coutinho

From a chat around games to the blog's name.
From the name of the blog to a travel memory.
In colour. And in Black and White.

Thanks Miguel!


Step in and leave your PAW print - Playing Around the World - and follow the PAW tag.
Send a photo of a gaming session, the game title, your name, city, country (and, if you feel like, a short sentence about the game and or a photo of the city) to gamesinbw@gmail.com.

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 8: At the desk

The materials I’ve been using in this quest for knowledge were claiming for a space of their own, all over the desk’s top and inside its drawers. Sometimes, with a sense of order, priority, urgency, novelty, among those piles. In others, a mere consequence of dumping the contents of my bag, at the end of another day. Others still, resulting for a search of a physical evidence of some memory of mine, a glimpse, a hint, an unexpected connection. Mornings, afternoons and nights, almost indistinct from each other, under the heavy skies out there, under the fading lights, in here.

In some distant arcade, a clock tower calls out six times and then stops. The young man slumps at his desk. He has come to the office at dawn, after another upheaval. (…) In the dim light that seeps through the room, the desks appear shadowy and soft, like large sleeping animals. (*)

The books, recipes and potions, from the latest lessons, still waiting for a fresh look, more attentive and long, occupy the top for good measure. Some scattered coins, on the right-hand corner, fruit of my afterhours work. Inside a drawer on the left, the notes for the next classes I will teach, and the income register. Study notebooks, inside two others. Still in the top row, a drawer containing the letters exchanged with my students, discussing their progress and discoveries. Further down, the travel journal and the itinerary of the paths to follow.

(to be continued)


On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 
.
(*) Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Ligthman, Vintage Contemporaries, 2004.

C as in CO2 and Cerebria

Third letter. C.
Two games. Cerebria and CO2.
One goal. To take them "to the table" during December.

C.
Climate.
Colours.
Creativity.
Cerebrum.
Complexity.
Competition.
Collaboration.

Ticking all the boxes.

Deeply immersive. CO2, the outside world, the one we are making. Climate change, emissions and our daily use of energy. Resonating with some of my previous lives, as an Environmental Engineer, working on air pollution, developing and using air quality models, participating in projects related to the main Portuguese power plants, Sines, Pego, Tapada do Outeiro, and to waste incineration projects. Cerebria, the inner world of which we are made of. Sensations and emotions, melody and harmony, tension and distension, light and darkness, overlaps, control, confrontation, supremacy, result, personality. Shaping and being shaped. An everyday experience.

Objects screaming for attention. The design of boards, pieces and cards. The shapes and the colour pallete. The symbols and codes. The functionality, the way everything comes together, making sense, elegantly, all along the learning curve.

High quality manuals, making you want to read them. At least for me, an assumed fan of written material. Font, boxes, colours, illustrations, examples. It's all in there, at first sight.

Modes suiting diverse tastes, extending the range of possible players. Cooperative or competitive. With or without scenarios. With the possibility of going solo, an essential requirement for me for this genre of games, for which it is not always easy to find partners or to match agendas.

And last but not last, high complexity. Requiring will, effort and time. To learn, to be able to teach them in a clear, compelling and captivating way, and to play.

Hoping to have something more to say, soon!

GBA Night

Back on the road, back on the bike, for a Flamme Rouge race. With Avenue Corso Paseo on the menu, a completely flat stage, and eight cyclists at the start, representing four teams, one of which debuted on the international circuit.

The start was slow, with the peloton running compact, headed, from the start, by the blue team. No one seemed to be willing to take the initiative. No major changes, whatsoever, for almost the entire first third of the race. Until the red team attacked, managing to put both of their riders in the front, escaping from the group, and forcing the pack to move into hot pursuit mode. The peloton only fully regrouped at the entrance of the final curves, with some cyclists already showing wear signs. A tight dash to the finish line ... and the winner is … the red team sprinter, by just one bike length!

Asger Harding Granerud. Flamme Rouge. Lautapelit.fi, 2017. MEBO Games. Lda.

Flamme Rouge once again exhibited its remarkable balance, in which suspense usually remains high throughout the entire race, and in which someone seldom gets out of  the fight. A game that takes less than 10 minutes to be prepared and taught, and that plays in about 45 minutes.

It is also possible to design other routes, to introduce climbs and descents, add wind and rain effects with the Meteo expansion, increase the number of cyclists with the Peloton expansion, or even, why not, modify some rules.

Uwe Rosenberg and Corné van Moorsel, Nova Luna, Pegasus Spiele, 2019.

From the road we fly high to the Moon, Nova. Picking up tiles. Limited by the position of the Moon, which moves, and by the choices of other players. Advancing the Moon to a new phase. Choosing a small step, to play more often, or taking a giant leap, to collect "the" tile.

Placing tiles. Making alignments of central gems, so that they match, in terms of number and colours, to the combinations that are depicted in each tile, in order to meet the objectives.

A beautiful puzzle, not trivial to accomplish, requiring a constant adaptation and lots of attention. It's easy to get your eyes crossed, at first!

Oleksandr Nevskiy, Club Detective, IGAMES, 2018. MEBO Games Lda.

Returning to Earth and to the contact with other human beings. Telling stories, making links between words and images, bluffing, trying to read the others and to find out who was kept out of the initial secret. Club Detective.

With cards reminding Dixit, but with different game mechanisms, it is one of those games that shines at larger player counts, in a relaxed ambiance, giving room to the imagination and requiring a fast mind for establishing connections.


And so it was, one more session organised by the Aveiro Boardgamers Group, with Carlos Abrunhosa, Nuno Rebelo and Pedro Chuva for company.

See you next time!

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 7: Lessons

The lessons succeeded. I was feeling once again like one of those students of mine, moving from class to class, from master to master, from the farthest theory to the closest practice.

Some lessons were about new subjects, each one providing a diverse perspective upon the same world, and starting almost from the very beginning, new principles, terms and concepts, the most basic of things. Poking around, testing, experimenting, widening the base. Not always immediately understanding the what and the why. Sometimes seeking, far too soon, for a usefulness to this knowledge.

In many others, I felt increasingly venturing along a narrow path, focusing, entering the domain of experts. Ascending one level. Understanding the complexity that, after all, makes things simpler. Participating in sessions that a few years ago, or even a mere few months ago, would be totally incomprehensible for me, as if spoken in a foreign language.

But even more than extending horizontal lines or progressing along the vertical scale, I was becoming increasingly interested in the oblique paths, those that allow you to cross over multiple domains and various levels, hence blending knowledge. Looking at the natural in an abstract way, and to the abstract with the eyes of nature, adding a dash of art, here and there, questioning, jumping barriers, circumventing or confronting those acting as landlords of some of such domains.

However, it was only in the Newtonian era that this new cohabitation [between Physics and Mathematics] led to a genuine marriage. Newton's "Principia", needless to say it, were a mathematical work par excellence (...). A physics student needed, at the very least, to be well prepared in conical section geometry and preferably also in calculus. As a result, from the moment Newton's Cosmology began to be taken seriously at the universities of continental Europe, the physics course had to be prefaced by the detailed teaching of Mathematics (*)

So much to know, so much to learn, so much to teach, so much to discover. And so little time for all that! A permanent tension between learning something different, something new, or deepening an already ongoing path. Torn between the whole and small parts. Between listening to many masters or arguing with only one or two, almost as equals.

I realize that these are not only dilemmas of mine, but also of the masters themselves. They debate what to teach, how to do it, in what sequence. What is most relevant and what might be accessory. They have different opinions on the foundations and methods, on the role of each discipline, on the use of time.

I do not know if these questions will have an answer during the century to come, the nineteenth, that is already around the corner ...

(to be continued)


On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 
.
(*) Free translation from Uma História da Universidade na Europa [A History of the University in Europe], Vol. II – As Universidades na Europa Moderna (1500-1800), Coordenação de Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda (2002).

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 6: Part of a growing tree

This week I received correspondence from two of my students, from the times of Paris and Cambridge!

It is from a distance that I keep following their studies, their progress, their explorations and, soon, I am sure, their own discoveries. At a distance and with a delay, sometimes due to the lack of proper time to write and, more often, to the time needed for the letters to reach their destination. My very own quest, leading me to frequent cities or even kingdom changes, makes it even more hard to keep up with.

Maybe a day will come when it will be possible to talk from a distance, as if being in the very same room ...

I like to indulge in the feeling that I can still provide some guidance along the path of knowledge, even if more through mere clues and question raising, than through conveying my acquired knowledge. Just like my master did to me before.

What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in considering the colours of thin plates. If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. But I make no question you have divers very considerable experiments beside those you have published, and some, it’s very probable, the same with some of those in my late papers (*)

Putting aside what may be nothing more than fine irony, typical of the acrimony that I know existed between Newton and Hooke, and the preference they had for private discussions over  public debate, I rather prefer to replace the image of the giants that preceded us, in this way of knowledge, for something more organic, for the image of a growing tree.

A tree that grows, with new branches searching for light, leaves and even flowers, seeds that fly with the wind or reach new heights on the wings of a bird, and which upon getting back down on fertile land will originate brand new trees. There are also branches that die, leaves that turn yellow and fall, becoming part of the sustaining land.

(to be continued)


On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 
.
(*) Koyré, Alexandre. “An Unpublished Letter of Robert Hooke to Isaac Newton.” Isis, vol. 43, no. 4, 1952, pp. 312–337. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/227384.

Close Encounters

Last year was the first visit, just passing by, to take a look at the ambiance and a sneak peek at a few games, with no time to stay, no time to play.

A very different story, one year later on this voyage! Looking at games, naturally, both brand new and ageing ones, some completely unknown and others that have already hit the table, made it to the news or just have a familiar name.

But this was, increasingly and foremost, a time for close encounters. Some for the very first time; others feeling like reunions, with those usually sharing the same places; others still coming out from the virtual reality of networks, forums, blogs, channels, messages, into the material world. Time for chats and stories, about games, creations, dissemination, the industry. About the past, the present and the futures to come.

It was also the opportunity to conduct tests of a prototype, for Weird Giraffe Games, with different players and at different player counts, as well as to try out another prototype, Zookeepers, already in advanced development stages, by the hand of Pedro Gordalina, the second game of CardsLab, a Portuguese publisher.

This time around I also got the chance to play! First, Tiny Towns, a 2019 game, with four more players. Then, and with all the Wingspan birdies unavailable, and thanks to Vasco Chita’s efficient on the table tutorial, I gave a shot at one those that have been in my waiting list for a long time: Tzolk'in - the Mayan Calendar and its original interlocked gears.

Newton, a request from João Neves, was left to play because the room was crowded, with no spare tables whatsoever ... the result of a full house on a Saturday afternoon. As well as Porto, from Orlando Sá and MeboGames, one of the latest national productions.

Eleven hours at Invicta Con 2019, an organization of the Porto Boardgamers Group, in the Multiusos of Gondomar, near Porto, Portugal.

Play test of Gift of Tulips, by Sara Perry, to Weird Giraffe Games

Zookeepers prototype, Pedro Gordalina, CardsLab

Tiny Towns, Peter McPherson, Alderac Entertainment Group, 2019

Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar, Simone Luciani e Daniele Tascini, Czech Games Edition, 2012

Next on the Portuguese convention route is Augusta Con, Braga, from December 13 to 15.

"Not all those who wander are lost"

Cerebria, MindClash Games, 2018

A year ago, the countdown ended.
A year ago, this blog began.
The start of a journey.
Wandering in the land of games.
Without worrying where I might end.
Not knowing what I would find.
Not knowing who I would find.

A year of travelling.
A year of emotions.
As in the image and in the words.
In variable intensities, doses and effects.
Depending on the days or even on the hours.

Comfort. Insecurity. Euphoria. 
Loneliness. Trust. Bleakness. Sociability. 
Lethargy. Safety. Pessimism. Freedom. Doubt. Passion.

The path began in the comfort zone, solo, creating a new blog. With elements other than those present in the Notes (in Portuguese), already over ten years old. Adding games and photos to the writing. Three of my things. And with languages, as the fourth element. Avoiding the simplest choice between English and Portuguese, my mother tongue. Duplicating the work, creating twin versions in both languages. To share with more people. Definitely a feature to keep! And to which increasingly frequent contacts in Spanish, or sporadically in French, have been added. Communicating with more travelers, using their mother tongues whenever possible.

An extensive part of the walk was made in the virtual world, which is also real. Using the networks that modify space-time. That nullify some borders, even when creating new ones. Multiplying possibilities, up to the risk of overload. Implying other options, as to who, how, when, with what proximity. On Facebook, now extended to thematic groups; on Twitter, in an account created for this purpose; on Kickstarter, where both first ever projects and established companies coexist; and, responding as appropriate to new needs, on Reddit, Discord, Tabletopia.

InvictaCon 2018

Players gather around tables. They touch pieces, cards, dice, boards. At home, with friends, as in the world I grew up in and where access to new games was limited. But the land of games is much larger now, with many more inhabitants, many more species, moving much faster, extending through cafes, clubs and conventions.

Still early on this route, I made a swiftly passage by InvictaCon. An appetizer for other meetings, that happened in 2019, at LeiriaCon, in a very international setting, and Riacon. And as the summer was starting, the presence on the regular meetings organized by the Boardgamers Group of Aveiro. Gondomar, Leiria, Estarreja and Aveiro, among other cities in Portugal. Geography with games, to repeat and widen!

Continuing to wander I reached other places.

Moon, Pablo Garaizar, 2019

Observing games published in several languages, I thought I could contribute to increase the presence of Portuguese, making them accessible to more people, for whom the language can be a barrier or at least decrease the appetite. This, even considering the small size of the Standard Portuguese market.

A new phase thus began, daring to initiate a new set of contacts. “How about a Portuguese version of the rules?” Some silences, many negatives, some "maybe..." and "if", but also several affirmative answers! At first there were the whales, giving me some more confidence. Several projects followed suit. Some contacts have already become, in this short time, recurring ones. And as a positive symbolic sign, I received, just today, the end result of one of these projects. I reached the moon!

In a natural way, a new branch sprouted, based on my previous ROT experience (“Revisor Oficial de Textos” standing for “Official Text Proofreader”), as we called it among us, in a restricted group at the workplace: the revision or editing of rules.

And then, the involvement in the very creation process of games, through comments to the underlying concepts and mechanisms, during the development phase, and the testing of prototypes, in more advanced stages.

More than forty collaborations in all, accounting for many more people.

If I continue to wander long enough, I may be able to reach up two other levels, which I know are out there, in the land of games: the writing of a rule book from scratch, and the design of a few of my own games, whose ideas are still maturing.

In parallel, my collection of games was also increasing, among new acquisitions, the result of some of the collaborations, offers or even an instant of luck in a raffle! There are about twenty new worlds, some of which are yet to be experienced. As a direct result from the intensity of the journey, the time to stop and to play is somewhat scarce.

There have been many meetings throughout this year, with Authors, Illustrators, Writers, Content Creators, Editors, Managers and, of course, Players, scattered around the globe! I'm not going to list them now, but they're certainly going to show up here, in this blog, at some time, in Black and White.

"Not all those who wander are lost", The Lord of The Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien.

A night with games

In this occasion at CUFC - Faith and Culture University Centre, by the University of Aveiro, thus becoming the third home for playing board games in the Aveiro Region (Portugal), after S. Bernardo and Borralha, Águeda. Lively tables with not that many empty seats around them, holding promises for the last Mondays of every month to come.

Besides chatting and taking some photos, for the record, I also managed to have a go at some games.

Starting with Xodul, a prototype by Sílvia Rodrigues combinig some pieces and movements based on the more traditional chess, on shogi and xiang-qi, with some original features. A challenge for those enjoying abstract games for two, in black and white!

Then it was time to guide new players into Azul, a game that is becoming increasingly popular, for its components, the game play itself and, no doubt, by the rules so easy to understand and its short duration.

And, to end the night, a play of Sagrada, for some time in the waiting list. A colourful game, matching the underlying stained-glass theme, with a simple set of rules, not that easy to master, and a dash of luck attached to the countless dice that will bring the stained-glasses to life.

More to come, next month!

Playing the Xodul prototype

Teaching Azul

Having a go at Sagrada

Step in and leave your PAW print - Playing Around the World - and follow the PAW tag.
Send a photo of a gaming session, the game title, your name, city, country (and, if you feel like, a short sentence about the game and or a photo of the city) to gamesinbw@gmail.com.

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 5: On Newton's chair

On the road again, after months of hard work. And although I like the afternoons, and the nights, spent around books, scribbling and thinking, I must confess that I was missing the freedom of travel.

Now, the landscapes were slowly unfolding, as I headed North. The approach to the sea was told on by changes in the air. Then, the crossing of the Channel waters, the sighting of the white cliffs of Dover, amidst the dissipating fog, and the disembarking on the other shore, followed suit.

Resuming the way, over dry land, I passed Canterbury, with its cathedral and castle, exhibiting signs of centuries bygone. I crossed the Thames, to the east of London, where I was hoping to pass on the way back. I continued, through hills green from water, water from the flowing rivers and water that frequently fell from the skies. I finally hit the next stop.

I had left the city with a university for the University with a city.

I was in Cambridge. Buildings full of history and knowledge, with its silhouettes at sunset, chapels, columns and spirals, lawn courtyards, river and bridges. Peterhouse College, dating back to the late 13th century, Corpus Christi, King's, Queen's, St. John's, among others. And, of course, Trinity College. I was stepping on the very same ground Newton had stepped on, not that many years ago!

Newton’s first lecture as Lucasian professor took place at Trinity College in January 1670. It was about his research on optics (…). The audience was small, no-one came to the second lecture, and he continued talking to an empty room throughout almost every lecture he gave for the next seventeen years. After that he gave up all pretence of teaching, which he never enjoyed. (*)

The dilemmas I was, increasingly, dealing with, split between the search for and the transmission of knowledge.

The search, demanding, intense, incessant, absorbent, of answers that will always bring new questions. Know, know more, know first, discover, unravel, somehow create. Isolate from the world to better understand the world.

To share, passing on both knowledge and method, starting the flame, awakening the enthusiasm, unsettling the other. Providing clues, instead of solutions, to make one read and reread, demonstrate, debate, listening, knowing how to listen, teach, repeat, insist.

What would I become, throughout this journey, throughout this life?

(to be continued)


On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 
.
(*) Remarkable Physicists - From Galileo to Yukawa, Ioan James, Cambridge University Press (2004).

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 4: Working long hours

I knew the city. The uses and traditions. Both, by day and by night. In the sunlight, or in the shadows. A result of a few months of much study, and of some wandering around.

But there was an urge to consider the present situation, as well as to delve into the near future. I really needed to find a way to increase my revenue, which is becoming increasingly tight, if I am to maintain this living standard.

A part of those gains would naturally be used to acquire even more books. It is not enough for me to just touch their covers, or flip through their pages. I need to have them with me, to be able to carry the knowledge and imagination, to increase the number of my travel companions.

Another part would be necessary to prepare the next trip, now that my stay in Paris was approaching the end.

Fortunately, it was not difficult, to someone of my condition and with my knowledge, to find students in need of private lessons.

One must also consider the fact that many teachers have an auxiliary income such as lawyers, preachers, school presidents, university or college council members, librarians, private teachers, etc. (*).

And this is how my days became longer, divided between the hours at the university, the private lessons and scarce spare time. As compensation, I will have some more volumes to carry. And also a somewhat fuller purse.

(to be continued)


On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 
.
(*) Uma História da Universidade na Europa [A History of the University in Europe], Vol. II – As Universidades na Europa Moderna (1500-1800), Coordenação de Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda (2002).

Six Pack - N.º 2 - Of cities

The Settlers of Catan

Six.

The sides of a dice.

The sides of the hexagon.

Photographs without comment.

Assembled under a common feature.

The Castles of Burgundy

Alhambra

Squad Leader

Tokyo Highway

Solenia

A quest for knowledge - Ep. 3: Et voilá, Paris!

I left. I travelled. And I arrived!

I arrived at the new center of my world, for the days and nights to come. The university, the Sorbonne and the other colleges, the astronomical observatory, the libraries. I was starting to feel at home in the modus parisiensis of college life, spending my time in slots, between the time to get up and bedtime : the lessons, the study, the reading and memorization, the conversations with other students, the teachers, the meals.

I was also beginning to know the city. The Seine and its banks, the island and the cathedral, the streets and alleys, the inns, the taverns, the people.

Of no lesser importance, at least for me, were those moments when I wandered into the typographies and the booksellers, leafing through both legal books as, in a stealthier way, books that only circulate underground, avoiding the scrutiny of the authorities.

“The whole town acts like a book and the Citizens walk through it reading it, soaking up civil lessons at every step they give”, E. Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France, in Homens Bons [free translation from the Portuguese version].

I did not know for how long I would stay. But of one thing I was certain: I would return to the open road, in search of other places, wishing to live other experiences, aiming to find new wisdom. Maybe, too, in search of myself.

(to be continued)


On a journey, riding with Newton, a game of Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani, Ediciones Mas que Oca (2018) under license of Cranio Creations. 

Homens Bons [Good Men] (2015), Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Edições ASA.
Uma História da Universidade na Europa [A History of the University in Europe], Vol. II – As Universidades na Europa Moderna (1500-1800), Coordenação de Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda (2002).

Elementary!

Do you like a good crime plot, to closely follow the investigation, to pay attention to the clues,to discover where the incoherence lies, to anticipate the protagonists? Are you prepared to read cases, hear testimonies, record facts? Have you ever dreamed of being Sherlock Holmes or his faithful companion, Dr. Watson?

If you answered yes to all the above, then it is very likely that you will enjoy bringing to life the cases present in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective – The Thames Murders & other cases!

This game, designed by Gary Grady, Suzanne Goldberg and Raymond Edwards, superbly illustrated by Pascal Quidault, Arnaud Demaegd, Nerlac and Bernard Bitler, in an edition of Space Cowboys, France, reinvents, in some way, the adventure game books, in which the story unfolds according to the actions we choose, jumping from one paragraph to another.

London. March 12th, 1988. A body is found. The investigation begins.

We won't be Sherlock! But he's the one who calls us in, introduces us to the case and sends us on a mission.

We're one of the Baker Street Irregulars. Street people who live by the shadows, watching and listening, helping the most famous detective.

The first information about the case, the circumstances of death, the first reports, people to contact in search for relevant information.

On the table, the map of London, full of places that may prove important, or to lead us into dead (no pun intended) ends.

The newspapers of the previous days, filled with current news, social events, births, marriages and deaths, the economy, the sport, the arts, the international scene, the trivia, the classifieds.

Will they enable us to gather clues, names, new knowledge? Will they allow to confirm, or to dismiss, alibis? Will they lead to unsuspected motives? Or are they just irrelevant to the case?

The London Directory, with the alphabetical list of people, institutions and addresses.

Musgrove, Lord Gordon, 79 NW, the same as saying 79 northwest.

Winchester Arms Co, 21 EC, East Central, under Gunsmiths.

Addresses to search for in the map.
Map to reveal new addresses.
Distance and time to be measured.

The Thames River, the Parliament, the American Embassy, the New Scotland Yard.
Regent Street, New Oxford Street, High Holborn.

Familiar names to anyone who's been there before.
Names that will become familiar throughout the history, in this London of some 230 years ago.

The game play is simple: choose a location, based on the available information, to visit or to interview someone; Find the matching paragraph in the book of the case; Read the new information; Reflect upon it and repeat the process.

It is important to know that we can always rely on some important characters, such as Sir Jasper Meeks, the coroner of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, Porky Shinwell, the owner of the Raven and Rat Pub, Langdale Pike, social columnist, or Holmes himself, among others.

In the end, we compare our deductive reasoning, and the result obtained, with the master's very own solution. Will it be close enough?

The experience began in solo mode, but it will undoubtedly be more fun with two or three more detectives around, exchanging opinions, discussing what to do, formulating hypotheses.

And after a case is solved, which will probably need a good couple of hours, there are nine more on the line! And after solving all of them, how about becoming a narrator for a new group of players?

An excellent game to read, to discover while reading, while talking over.

Night falls over London.