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. 
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(*) 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. 
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(*) 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.