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!