Where nights and days don't succeed

Back home, at last!

To the familiar sight of cities and mountains floating in the air. The large vessels roaming across the sky, sails unfurled to the wind. The balloons, moving up and down, carrying goods from the production islands. The bright sunlight.

So many memories surfacing fast. It feels like not having left the planet for so long.

Except for one thing. While on the blue planet days and nights succeeded, setting the pace and providing rest, over here there is never darkness on the North side, and there is never light in the Southern hemisphere. And this is proving harder to overcome than space lag.

Across the ages people have adapted, so that they can inhabit both areas. Activities and trade were segregated accordingly. Crops are planted and forests are raised in the North, and the resulting wood and wheat transported southward. Stones and water, abundant down under, make the other way around.

And traveling across this world, providing supplies to everyone, is more than a job: it is an honourable mission.

Yes. This is home. This is Solenia!

Floating cities

With sails unfurled to the wind

Another shipment completed

In search of raw materials

Across the skies

Water

Starry night

Dujardin, Sébastien, Solenia, Frasnes, 2018: Pearl Games.
Illustrated by Vincent Dutrait.

PAW, at LeiriaCon 2019

Weekend full of games.

Saturday in Estarreja, Portugal. Another chess match for the 2nd Division Team National Championship, Series A. Third consecutive win and third team win.

Sunday, heading south. Departure at 8:30 a.m. Gray sky, contrasting with the last days. Highway practically deserted. One hour of quiet driving time. Destination: Praia de Vieira de Leiria, for the last day of Leiriacon, 2019 harvest, the 14th in history.

Table booked for ten in the morning, with Yinzi, on the menu.

A truly new game, just released, authored by the Portuguese José Carlos Santos and Luís Costa, with the beautiful work of illustration by Harald Lieske, and published by the German publisher Spielworkxx.

As a host, José Carlos Santos, himself, to uncover some of the secrets of this game of commerce, set in the China of the Ming dynasty. A very rich game, full of choices, interconnected mechanisms, small details and subtleties. Clearly to repeat the experience, which deserves a more time-consuming tasting, so to discover the many flavors! 

From a new game we passed to one that is still to be!

Trying out a prototype with an original theme.

A pallet of characters, which will be posing for a painting, but full of whims about their position on the setting, the companions, the postures.

A fast paced, information-seeking game, which undoubtedly will put the memory to the test.

And, to end the day, a game that already enjoys great popularity, despite having only a couple of years. Azul, by Michael Kiesling, with azulejos, ceramic tiles of Portugal, as a theme. Aesthetically pleasing, easy to learn, fast to play, allowing for different strategies. I still have to experience its flow with three and four players, but it is clear why it has so many fans!

And that's how it was, this visit to Leiriacon.

With an excellent atmosphere, great friendliness and relaxation, a strong international presence and reference names of this world of games.

Already looking forward to the 2020 Convention!

And a little more of blue, before the sun sets.

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.

Tea time, with Dan and Connie

Photo by Travis Wilkins (@travisnwilkins on Instagram and Twitter), Ontario, Canada.

Wandering in the land of games. Pathways with history and with stories. For sharing. All this may sound familiar for those of you who have read the initial post of this blog. Creations. Creators. Stories of games. Stories of gamers. Stories of the people behind the games.

Today, we are heading to Calgary (Alberta, Canada), not far from Banff National Park, to chat with Dan & Connie Kazmaier, of Steeped Games, around a hot cup of tea. What could be more appropriate when the temperature outside is just over freezing point?

Well, not physically heading. After all, Calgary, Canada, is not around the corner from Aveiro, Portugal. With the Atlantic Ocean and most of a continent in between, over 7500 km, a 7h time difference, and, yes, a 20C difference as well!

It is therefore fortunate that, in both our worlds, messaging is almost instantaneous. Questions sent, answers received, asynchronous communication established. And while we do not seat around the same table, pouring tea into our cups, we still can talk about tea. Or, better said, about Chai, the first and upcoming game of Dan & Connie.

Chai is a game where you become a tea merchant, collecting ingredients, making your own tea blends and fulfilling customer orders. Berries and lavender, with a touch of vanilla and a drop of milk? Yes, you may do that, after shopping in the market and visiting the pantry for the right ingredients. Just don’t get lost experimenting, satisfy your clients and get some tips!

This cup of tea was launched on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform, on December 2018, backed by almost 2600 people, and raised over 135000$. Still some way to go before hitting the shelves and, more important, the tables.

Pull a chair and join us for this chat!

Where did the idea of turning tea into a game, or make a game around tea, come from? 
We were designing a submarine Euro at the time, and realized a tea-themed game would be a great start. We're still working on the other design and some more, but felt we wanted to run with a tea game that really sparked our interest, and that of play testers too. When you have something that friends and family enjoy, you have to keep working on that.


When did it all start?
Last year in early March, after a three-day design conference called EPOC, in Canada.


It is the first you have designed, or have you developed other games before, even if only for personal enjoyment? 
Connie: I haven't designed any games before, but I am an avid board gamer, particularly co-operative games.
Dan: I enjoyed making some games as an elementary student in my spare time, starting with one on The Hobbit and Sid Meier's Civilization. I played chess competitively starting in junior high, so designing games later on seemed a natural progression.
Me: Sounds familiar, as I've always been making small games, for personal entertainment, and started playing competitive chess around 9th grade (still occasionally do).

Is the finalized version much different from the starting point, regarding gameplay? 
Chai evolved fairly quickly thanks to the help of play testers! The market board was made fairly early on and is the most unique part of the game, so we built around it the best that we could. The tea customer "tips" were added later on, and even though we were happy with where the game was a few months out from the Kickstarter, after adding ability cards we really felt we had nailed it. It's surprising how many times you'll keep tweaking things, but we told ourselves that we had to release it to the world at some point. Setting an early December 2018 date for our Kickstarter launch helped us stay honest with this goal in mind, or else we'd probably still be working on it now.


Did you get significant contributions from the gaming community? 
Oh absolutely - community involvement was truly the heart behind the success of our game's Kickstarter campaign, but also leading up into it. We had countless people encourage us throughout the journey, as some months required more mental energy to keep going. Suggestions on tweaking things from different mechanics to the rulebook were all instrumental in pulling this all off. If it takes a village to raise a family, it can certainly take a global communi-tea (pardon the pun) to fashion a board game. We're so grateful for those that have come alongside and helped us, which also includes different well-established publishers which offered feedback and advice too.

How was the art for the game developed and did that process actually influenced the game?
We hired two amazing artists (Sahana Vj from Bangalore, India, and Mary Haasdyk from Calgary, Canada), who were wonderful throughout the entire process. Leading into the campaign we had them work on 80% of the art, with the remaining being wrapped up now as we head into production. We asked our community and other board game groups what kind of characters they'd like to see in the game, which helped guide the creative process throughout our journey.


What was the main challenge or unexpected issue to overcome? 
Our goal was to try to figure out how to create a game that is accessible for non-gamers, but to be enjoyed at a strategic level with gamers. We focused a lot on the immersive components of tea in the game, which helps bridge the gap, but it was easier said than done. We found at times gamers wanted more strategy and decision-making, so we changed the game slightly to favour this.


And, on the other hand, what turned to be easier than expected from the outset? 
Rallying together a helpful playtesting community proved to be easier than we anticipated! We're at over 1,200 members now in our Chai Board Game Community alone on Facebook, which has proved to be extremely helpful as we navigate what works and doesn't work from different people's perspectives.


Any new projects in the making? 
Yup! We're making an expansion for Chai that will hopefully be released later on this fall, and possibly a "duel" two-player version as well. Perfect for date nights, hah.

Game naming challenge: an “oldie” that is a fond memory or still being played, the last one you played, the next one to hit the table.
Scotland Yard (an old classic) and Rook with family (a trick-taking game).
We played Terraforming Mars on Thursady and Scythe: The Rise of Fenris twice on Monday, so we're on a roll!
And really looking forward in playing Stonemaier's latest Wingspan.


What tea do you prefer? I’m now into Morocco mint & spices.
Connie: I'm a rooibos girl.
Dan: a chrysanthemum kinda guy!


Photo credits: Travis Wilkins (@travisnwilkins on Instagram and Twitter), Ontario, Canada.

Just do your math!

Loose letters.
Coming together in words.
Crossed, on the pages of a newspaper, in a lonely play.
Intersecting, over a board, bringing together two, three or four players.
Being turned into points, which are numbers.
We call it Scrabble.

Loose digits.
Coming together in numbers.
That turn into other numbers.
By adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing.
To the taste of the four basic operations, on a board.
Numbers being turned into other numbers, which are points.
We call it Mathable!

Some people prefer letters.
Some people prefer numbers.
And some people enjoy playing with both.

Each player starts with a seven-number hand.

To place a number on the board, it must:

• be the result of an operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) that uses two adjacent numbers;
• be placed in line, vertically or horizontally, with the two numbers;
• be placed in a free space, immediately before or after those numbers.

In the example of the image above, starting from the initial position, the following pieces were placed:

• 3, as a result of 3x1 (or 3/1);
• 1, as a result of 2-1;
• 12, as a result of 3x4;
• 6, as a result of 2+4.

A player can put, in the same turn, how many numbers he wants. 

At the end of his turn, he gets the number of pieces required to have a new 7-number hand.

Alternatively, a player may try to improve his hand, by discarding a set of numbers, and drawing an equal amount of new numbers.

The board has some special squares:

• 2x – Doubling the value of the number placed in this space.
• 3x – Tripling the value of the number placed in this space.
• Operating signal – Forcing the number placed to be the result of the indicated operation. In such case, the player may draw an additional number to his hand but is not obliged to do so.

The scoring mode is simple, but you better have a recording sheet:

• Each piece placed scores a number of points equal to its face value.
• The parts placed in 2x or 3x squares score, respectively, the double or triple of their facial value.
• A piece can be the correct result for operations, equal or not, involving more than a pair of numbers, either horizontally or vertically. In this case, its value is counted for each one of the performed operations.
• The player who manages to put all the pieces of his hand scores an extra value of 50 points. If during the turn he got any additional pieces, he must also be able to place them, in order to obtain this bonus. If the hand is less than seven numbers, which can happen near the end of the match, when there are no longer enough parts to reset the hand, the bonus does not apply.

Each player gets a card identifying the available quantity of pieces for each of the numbers, which is fundamental information to realize which combinations are no longer possible or are unlikely.

It should be noted that not all the numbers are present, that there is a zero, that there are seven pieces for each of the numbers from 1 to 10, and that there is only a single piece for each of the remainder.

Matter to think about, for those wanting to play in a more strategic way, avoiding or creating impossibilities.

And that's it, for the game of numbers and of the operations that transform them, to be played by two, three or four players. Now, just do your math!


Mathable, Montreal, 1987: Jocus. Diset, S.A., Barcelona.