About Neal Murthy

Neal Murthy is a game designer whose work harkens back to a classical style of games - abstract, mentally-stimulating games with aesthetic qualities. Neal has been designing games as a hobby for 28 years and is realizing his passion for game design through his co-founding of Nefer Games. In his previous career, Neal was a successful management consultant with companies large and small.

Posts by Neal Murthy:

Lessons Learned…

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Hi. My name appears at the bottom of this article, but please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Neal Murthy, and my title at Nefer Games is Final Boss. There’s a lot of things that come with that title, but the most important thing is accountability. This post is about just that.

I love games – especially tabletop games, which I’ve loved since I can remember anything. I was given a Pachisi set by my grandfather 30 years ago, which set off a lifelong love of not only playing games, but creating them too. Until recently, my creations have been shared only with close friends and family, but my good friend Mike Korupp and I decided to create a company – this company, Nefer Games – to bring some of these games to market.

We’re starting with Sedis, a tile-based game system with which players can play a multitude of games of their own or others’ (including our) creation. Sedis tiles have an arrangement of pips and blanks (dots and circles) around the outer edge. The arrangement of these pips is developed using a method quite different from that of dominoes and playing cards, which rely primarily on the intersection of two things (two sets of numbers, 0-6, in the case of double-sixes dominoes, and ranks and suits, in the case of standard playing cards). Sedis is developed using a different application of mathematics.

Now, I have a mathematics background, and I often see the world through this perspective, so… despite the visual similarity between Sedis and dominoes, I asserted that it was not a derivative of dominoes (such as Tri-ominoes or others), but rather a wholly new game system unto itself. To validate my claim, I sought responses from gamers I know and around the country, and they validated it. So, it was my public assertion that this thing was wholly different from dominoes or playing cards – and as such, was something totally new to the world after hundreds of years. Regrettably, I did not seek further guidance from others such as those gamers on Reddit or BoardGameGeek (two important communities).

Recently, we launched our Kickstarter campaign. As part of this campaign, I had an interview with a local magazine. My claims were stated, and the magazine published them – with an even more hyperbolic title: Did This Houstonian Just Reinvent the Board Game?

My answer to this query-formatted title is “No,” but I still stood by the claim that Sedis was a different thing than dominoes and playing cards.

Then, the internet took over. The claim was chewed up by online communities at BoardGameGeek, Reddit and Facebook (along with the article itself). Naturally, I tried to defend the claim, but the response was (generally) thoughtful and critical rebuttal.  Overall, I was using a highly non-standard classification and my assertion was based on this. It’s important to note here that things like classifications and language as a whole is not something to be chalked up to “differences in semantics;” these things are tools of communities, and they’re extremely important to these communities. I was not using the standards of the community I was hoping to serve.

There were exceptions to the thoughtful critiques – in both directions. Some were highly supportive. Then there was this via Reddit (private message)…

You poor brown piece of s***. Go back to whatever country you came from. Your bulls*** is not wanted in America. Kill yourself you f****** sack of worthless garbage. I hope our family dies in a car accident. Your family deserves to die and you deserve to be alone you c***.

Now, I want to be very clear here. There were snarky comments on Reddit. There were comments which were personal in nature. But, there was nothing like this on the public thread. This was my first exposure to Reddit and I was appalled. One of the moderators on the subreddit had messaged me, so I brought this to his attention. The response was swift; this was not acceptable in the Reddit community, and it would be dealt with severely.

At the same time as this message arrived, I also recognized my ill-informed hubris. The members of these communities generally turned from critique to mentorship. They were supportive of Sedis – just not the way I was messaging the claims. And, I was humbled. I then quickly stated my regret and intention to change our messaging. We’ve now done so, for the most part, and Sedis stands on its own merits.

And, that’s the thing. If a game or any other product is created, it should stand on its own merits. The comparisons and contrasts with other things will come on their own.

Nefer Games is all about social connections through play in the physical-social space – forging cultural connections and norms, and developing real skills and experiences. But, you know, sometimes the digital world ain’t so bad. It connects people with vast experiences across vast distances. I’m grateful to now be a member of these wonderful online communities, and I hope that they will welcome me back – a changed man. I’ve been fortunate to build two software companies and a decent consultancy. But, now I’m starting at the beginning, learning to be a commercial game designer and the head of a game company.

Thank you, anonymous Reddit/FB/BGG members, for making me a better person. I hope I can return the favor one day.

We’re Not a Video Game Company

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I often tell people that we’re starting a game company. In fact, I’ll tell most anyone this every chance I get! The near-universal response is to assume that it’s a video game company.  *sigh*

This is exactly what we’re trying to change. Our global culture has over the past 30-odd years assumed a perspective that “game” is synonymous with video games and that “play” is associated primarily with children.

This wasn’t always the case. For nearly all of human history, games were a means of bringing people – family members, neighbors, even rulers – together… to share, to learn, to engage with one another in important ways. This has happened for thousands of years.

But things have changed over time. In the modern era, one significant change came about at the time – and possibly as a result of the actions of the Parker Brothers around the time of the late-19th/early-20th century. Prior to the founding of their company, games were serious things. Sure, they were fun and entertaining ways to engage with others, but they also generally had valuable lessons such as the development of skills in strategy (e.g., chess, Go) or even morality and religious tenets. For example, the modern game of Chutes and Ladders was originally a game called Gyan Chaupar, which taught Dharmic-religious players about the cycle of reincarnation.

 

Another change has occurred in the brief period since personal computers and their descendants – laptops and mobile devices – have become a part of our being. We at Nefer Games are not Luddites; each of us owns a smartphone, and we can find ourselves glued to its screen for unexpected lengths of time. We enjoy this and other forms of modern technologies. But they are no substitute for playing a tactile game with friends and family. It is unfortunate that we are trending toward a society in which we increasingly don’t play with each other; we now play with the computer.

Sure, there are “social” games online. But we don’t talk with each other when we play – and we certainly don’t see the nonverbal cues which purportedly make up 80+% of our communication. Most online social play is focused on our explicit interactions in the game itself – not the important peripheral social interactions through which we learn about each other as human beings.

Friends playing Rings with Sedis in the physical-social space.

Nefer Games is partly founded on a principle that people should play together, in what we call the physical-social space – not just through the digital pathways that connect us. In addition to Sedis, we have 21 tactile games under development which are being designed to challenge players’ minds while engaging them with each other. Our goal isn’t to stop people from playing Candy Crush or Farmville, but instead to increase the frequency with which they play tactile games in the physical-social space, and where they can talk with each other, learn from one another, and compete or collaborate to their heart’s content.

Another game under-development at Nefer Games.

Whether it’s with our games or others, we encourage you to play with others. Now, go play!

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Sedis: A Dream Come True

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As we scale the mountain that is the launch of our first product, Sedis, I find myself thinking back to how we got here.

As mentioned in the evolution of Sedis, it was early-2012 when I awakened at 3am from a dream with an image burning in my mind. I rushed from my bedroom to my home office – nearly falling down the stairs in the process – and quickly sketched the illustration of the tile below.

I believe we all have these dreams – the ones which have the potential to change our lives and maybe the lives of others – and opportunities which might otherwise drift past us during our waking hours. But, dreams are like wild horses; they are amazingly beautiful creatures and their beauty does not diminish when tamed, but they must be tamed if they are to be useful to us humans.

If you’ve read my blog post about the structure of Sedis tiles, you may notice that the above tile’s configuration does not conform to what eventually became the system of pips which defines Sedis. In their original form, I thought of the pips on these tiles as having a random configuration. But, that simply was infeasible. If this were to be anything of use to anyone, I understood that there would need to be some systematization to it.

My college studies were primarily in applied mathematics and economics, with an emphasis on game theory. Despite the name, the focus of game theory is less about games per se and more about understanding human behavior through mathematical models. Nevertheless, my interest in game theory certainly stemmed from a lifelong love of games, including nearly ten years (then) of hobbyist game design experience.

It was in those wee hours of that morning that order was brought to chaos. A random pip configuration became a highly-structured system of tiles through the application of a basic understanding of mathematics.

Some people believe in luck. I believe that opportunity is all around us – in our dreams, and in our interactions with the world – but we must rise to grab hold of these opportunities through the application of our awareness and our skills and talents. Sedis represents one means by which I feel that I’ve done this, but its ultimate fate will be determined by those who obtain and use it.

Perhaps the world does not need a fourth generic game device, but it seems that we continue to cherish the three others – dice, dominoes, and playing cards – and I hope that the world will cherish Sedis in a similar manner. In developing Sedis, I have embraced the belief that such things are important to humanity. I hope you feel the same.

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How Ancient Games Inspired Our Game Design Philosophy

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Tactile games have been a part of human history since the early days of civilization. The most ancient games pieces found thus far seem to be a set of 49 carved and painted stones found at a 5,000-year-old burial mound in Turkey, discovered in 2013 by a team led by Haluk Sağlamtimur of Ege University. The discovery confirms that board games likely originated and spread from the Fertile Crescent regions and ancient Egypt, a region known for ancient toys. It further asserts that play is an intrinsic part of human culture – something we at Nefer Games firmly believe.

Ancient game pieces discovered in 2013. Photo by Haluk Sağlamtimur, via Discovery News

The gentleman to the right in the photo below with me is Dr. Irving Finkel. He is a curator in the Middle East department of the British Museum with specific expertise in the domain of Ancient Mesopotamia. He also happens to be a renowned expert in the matter of ancient games, being the discoverer of the rules of the Royal Game of Ur, a Sumerian game dating back to roughly 2500 BCE, and a collector of several others. I had the fortune of meeting Irving when he gave a talk at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on ancient games last November. I’ve been reading his work on ancient games for more than a decade, and the experience was both wonderful and timely, given our work toward launching Nefer Games.

Neal Murthy and Dr. Irving Finkel

As you might expect, decoding the rules to an ancient game requires interdisciplinary knowledge: anthropology, game design, archaeology and language – and Dr. Finkel excels in this realm. In fact, Dr. Finkel has determined that the Royal Game of Ur underwent an important transition throughout its history: its board layout changed, and it’s had at least two distinct sets of rules. This evolution is common among ancient games, as flaws in game design or opportunities to expand the richness of play were discovered organically through the iterations of play over centuries. A similar transition occurred for chess, the history of which likely began around 1500 years ago in India in the form of a game called chaturaṅga, which uses pieces related to but somewhat distinct from those of modern chess. The actual rules of chaturaṅga may be lost to history, but various scholars have speculated on them on the basis of artifacts and later rule evolutions, such as its successor shatranj.

It was an 18th century pachisi set that sparked my interest in games beyond a form an entertainment. And the evolution of ancient games, as well as their exalted place in ancient society, has inspired the mission of Nefer Games. Our game design philosophy is grounded in three principles:

  • Attention to aesthetics: Ancient games tended to be built from natural base materials (stone, wood, etc) as well as natural enhancements (e.g., pigments) with attention placed on artistry as much as function.
  • Focus on mental and social engagement: Indeed, until the 1930s – i.e., for thousands of years – games were not solely used for entertainment, but were primarily tools of teaching skills and morals both to children and adults.
  • Solid game theory: While not initially designed with modern principles of game theory in mind (to my knowledge), games evolved over hundreds of years to address issues of gameplay and interaction in a way which not only adhere to these principles today, but in fact are much of the basis for our understanding of modern game theory.

An important distinction to be made in the context of solid game theory is that between complexity versus complication in game design. My own philosophy of these concepts is grounded in systems theory, which understands complexity as the emergence of a condition of richness which comes from the interactions between the parts of the whole, but does not rely on those parts necessarily being numerous, while complication does rely on the existence of numerous elements which may not interact in rich ways with one another. Many games I see being developed in recent years rely on complication rather than complexity, which – to me – renders a far lesser experience to players.

While ancient games such as the Royal Game of Ur and chess have few elements with complex interactions, a resurgence of this principle of game design can also be found in some modern games – especially so-called Eurogames, such as the popular games Settlers of Catan and Carcassone.

At Nefer Games, we currently have 22 games in various stages of development (and another 50 or so on the back burner). Our first product is Sedis, the fourth generic game device in history. Like many ancient games, all of these games adhere to our three principles of game design and are inspired by the phrase “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master.” Subscribe to be notified on when Sedis is launched.

Release the Games! Playing Games with Sedis

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As noted in previous blog posts, Sedis is a “generic gaming device” – in fact, only the fourth in history. By our definition, this means it is a set of similar game pieces with which multiple games with differing game mechanics and rules may be played.

In other words, much like dominoes or playing cards, Sedis can be used to play and create many different games. When people ask me about this, the conversation usually goes like this:

Me: Well, I could ask you to play cards, and you might agree to do so, but then you would ask…

Them: What are we going to play? We could play Rummy, or Go Fish, or Blackjack, or Poker. And, even if we decide to play Poker, we could play… Texas Hold’em or Five-card Stud or…

Me: Exactly. You don’t play cards; you play games with cards. Similarly, you don’t play Sedis; you play games with Sedis… like Rings, Honeycomb or Bloom.

Each game has its own distinct characteristic, and we’ve “discovered” many different game mechanics which form the backbone of games, including:

  • Aligning tiles and matching pips/blanks
  • Rotating tiles
  • Stacking tiles
  • “Battle’ mechanics
  • Trading
  • Betting/Gambling
  • Bluffing
  • Partnering/Communicating
  • Collaborating
  • Interpreting pips as numbers
  • Interpreting pips as Morse code
  • And more mechanics are being discovered as we move forward – by us and our fans!

We have around a dozen games for which we’ll be releasing instructions over the next weeks. Our ultimate goal, though, is to build a community of Sedis players to create and share their own games. And, if you tell us about your game, we’ll publish it on our site for the world to see and attribute it to you! We’ll introduce games week by week, so sign up for our newsletter and/or follow Nefer Games on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Get ready for a variety of imagination, logic and fun coming soon in the form of a set of sixty hexagonal tiles.

The Audacity of the Long Now

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It’s interesting to think about the future. The uncertainty of our predictions increases with the distance to the horizon of our vision, yet it’s the far-flung future that seems to capture the imagination the most – perhaps, due to that very uncertainty. In his famous 2006 TED talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity?, education expert Sir Ken Robinson states:

“[…] it’s education that’s meant to take us into this future that we can’t grasp. If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue […] what the world will look like in five years’ time. And yet we’re meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.”

In a mountain near Van Horn, Texas, on land owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, a clock like no other is being built. It is the first of many clocks that its creator, Danny Hills, and his staff hope will be built around the world: the Clock of the Long Now, an audacious experiment in human ingenuity and vision. The Clock of the Long Now is conceived as a clock which will function for at least 10,000 years.

Clock of the Long Now

Clock of the Long Now Prototype, Science Museum, London. image via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s put this in some perspective: The notion of ‘civilization’ dates back to the emergence of systematic agriculture as a human institution. Agriculture developed in different parts of the world at different times, over a period of thousands of years, so we’ll use the domestication of cattle as our marker. This occurred in areas of the Middle East – Turkey and Pakistan – approximately 10,000 years ago. And, many of the civilizations which we attribute the term ‘ancient’ – such as that of Egypt, China, the Indus Valley and Greece – all emerged within the past 5,000 years.

So, the Clock of the Long Now is designed to last into our future for as long as human civilization has existed to today. That’s a very long time, and that is precisely the point of the Long Now project – to signify that we can think into the long-future.

I like things which are intended to last – to be passed down generation to generation: ideas, stories and objects. Sedis, the generic game system we’ve developed and are launching as our first product, is designed with this in mind. It’s made of wood; birch and cherry are our initial choices. Sure, plastic may technically last longer, but the point is also for people to want to hand it down to their kids and grandkids.

This is where my own audacity is manifested. You see, humanity is slowly becoming a space-faring species. We’ve been to the Moon, and we may send humans to Mars in the near future. For these longer trips, astronauts need tools of play; I see no reason why Sedis can’t be one of those on these flights. And, as we continue to expand the reach into space, I’d like Sedis to be carried with us – across the galaxy, if we can ever achieve that. So, we can continue to play.

NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff, Expedition 17 flight engineer, smiles for a photo near a chess board in the Harmony node of the International Space Station, July 19, 2008. Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff, Expedition 17 flight engineer, smiles for a photo near a chess board in the Harmony node of the International Space Station, July 19, 2008. Credit: NASA

Oh, and if we ever happen to chance upon other sentient lifeforms in our space travels, I’d like us to give them a nice Sedis set as a gesture of goodwill, friendship and play. I doubt that this will happen in my lifetime, but I can dream.

We should all dream.

How to Read a Sedis Tile and the History of Generic Game System Design

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Previously, I asserted (and validated) that Sedis is only the fourth extant “generic gaming device” – a system of of game tiles, with similar and deliberate piece design, with which a large variety of games can be played. Now, I want to delve further into of how Sedis is actually designed. But, first, let’s start with a brief history of how the other three generic gaming systems – dice, dominoes, and playing cards – are designed.

Terracotta dice at Archaeological Museum of Delos, Greece via Wikimedia Commons

Terracotta dice at Archaeological Museum of Delos, Greece via Wikimedia Commons

Dice is the simplest gaming device, because historically each die is identical in configuration to the others within a set. There are exceptions to this, especially in the modern era of role-playing games. The traditional die is a cube, with each of six faces showing a different number of pips/dots, indicating the number represented, thus ranging from one to six. Dice are typically used as a random device in the context of whatever game is being played. Dice likely originated in the ancient Middle East and ancient dice have been found at archaeological sites such as Sumeria1, Egypt2, the Roman Empire3, China4 and India5.

Dominoes are derived from dice and show the same pip configurations as if two dice were thrown simultaneously, thereby eliminating duplicate combinations. Dominoes are thought to have originated in ancient China in the 12th century CE6. Chinese dominoes, which consist of 21 tiles, are somewhat different in their configuration than the more widespread European dominoes which, while derived from the Chinese set, added tiles with blanks (essentially, zero pips), bringing the tile count to 28 in the 18th century7. Both of these sets can be referred to as double-six sets, as the highest-ranked tile generally consists of two halves with six pips each. Later, double-nine and double-twelve sets were introduced, but the double-six sets continue to be the most used8. An important note is that, unlike dice, a dominoes set consists of individual members which are derived from the same underlying method but differ from each other slightly.

Mamluk playing cards c. 1500. via Wikimedia Commons

Mamluk playing cards c. 1500. via Wikimedia Commons

Playing cards have a long and interesting history. Like dominoes, cards likely originated in China – in this case, in the 11th century CE or before9. There is some ambiguity around this, as the first playing cards likely depicted a Chinese domino pack, but Chinese dominoes are not thought to have existed until the 12th century CE. Regardless, Chinese dominoes were split into two distinct (but unequal in number) suits. The notion of more suits entered into playing cards through Persia, in the form of the Ganjifa – and later, in the form of the Mamluk cards of Egypt10. The modern, international deck of 52-playing cards (13 ranks across 4 suits) seems to have been developed in Europe in the 14th through 17th centuries CE and likely evolved from the Mamluk cards. The most common deck in use today is called the French deck (52 cards), which is comprised of the familiar 13 ranks (Ace, 2-10, Jack, Queen, King) across four suits (spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds). Like dominoes, the modern playing card deck consists of a systematized approach with each card a unique member derived from the same underlying method of configuration.

sedis-design

Before I go into Sedis, let me offer a warning: many people may read what is below and be fearful of the ‘mathematics’ behind the design of Sedis. This is exactly the opposite of what I hope for; you do not need to understand the method by which Sedis tiles are designed in order to enjoy – and do well at – playing the games using the set. The following is offered only to inform the reader who is interested in how the system of tiles is developed. So, please… don’t let what’s ahead in this post scare you away from Sedis!

Sedis has a more complex derivation than these previous generic gaming devices, but a complete set of sixty tiles was still developed using a basic system of design, and each tile is unique in its configuration. Each Sedis tile consists of six sides, and each side has five spaces (also called indicia). Of these five spaces, between one and three on each side are darkened, called pips (as per the dots on dice and dominoes). Furthermore, only one side on each tile – the top side in the drawing below – has three pips; the others have one or two pips.

sedis-pips

The 3-pip side of each tile is called the ‘primary side’ of the tile – and not just because it has the most pips. The pips on all the other sides of a single tile are subsets of the primary side, which I’ll explain further:

First, let’s introduce a convention of naming the spaces. Let’s scan the tile from its center outward, then label the spaces left-to-right as 1 to 5, as in the illustration below.

sedis-tile-numbering

This particular tile has, on its 3-pip side, pips in the 2nd, 4th and 5th spaces. Let’s call this a 2-4-5 side on this tile. Every Sedis tile has one side with three pips – its primary side – and there are ten possible combinations. So, the entire set of 60 Sedis tiles can be broken down into ten ‘families’  – with each family consisting of six tiles which share the same primary side. The illustration below shows the primary sides of the ten families.

sedis-families

Now, let’s rotate the tile and look at each of the sides. First, we’ll look at the three 1-pip sides. The illustrations below show the same tile as above but rotated by 1/6, 3/6 and 5/6 counter-clockwise rotations. (Check for yourself.) Now, here’s something interesting. Recall that the 3-pip side on this tile had pips in the 2nd, 4th, and 5th positions. The 1-pip sides on the same tile each has one of these pips (from left to right in the illustration below, Pips #4, #2 and #5. In fact, this is not a mere coincidence. It’s part of the method of how Sedis is designed; every tile has three 1-pip sides, each of which is a unique pip from the primary side of the same tile.

sedis-pip-comparison

Given that there are three sides/places for these three pips, there are six unique configurations of any three pips along these sides. (I won’t go into the details here, but you can verify this yourself, if you’re so inclined.) Now, recall that there are ten families – sets of tiles with the same primary side. Combined with six unique configurations of distributing the three pips to the three 1-pip sides, we get 60 tiles total (ten families with six tiles each).

But, we’re not done. There are still two sides to each Sedis tile – the 2-pip sides. Let’s rotate the above tile a bit more (in this case, 2/6 and 4/6 of a full rotation from the original orientation). Note that each 2-pip side lies adjacent to two 1-pip sides – again, by design. The pips on the 2-pip sides are simply derived by combining the pips on each of the adjacent sides. So, you have what appears in the following illustration; for example, in the left image, the 2-pip side labeled 2-4 is simply the combination of the adjacent 1-pip sides, with pips in the 4th and 2nd position.

sedis-two-pip

In summary, each tile contains a primary, 3-pip side. These three pips are then distributed individually (and without duplication) to the three 1-pip sides. The 2-pip sides are derived by combining the single pips on the adjacent 1-pip sides. This results in 60 unique tiles with interesting properties.

First, Sedis is complex and rich, but relatively easy to understand (once you get used to the patterns). For example, if you want to know what may be on a tile, it’s not necessary to scan the whole tile; reading the primary side of the tile will give you a general sense of the pips on the other sides (but not their orientation) and – perhaps more importantly – will tell you what is not on the other sides. (In the example above, the primary side is a 2-4-5, so we can know immediately that the tile does not have any pip in the 1st or 3rd spaces on any side.)

Second, this system of configuration allows for interesting game mechanics and game rules, as well as interesting visual effects. One example of this is the game Rings, in which players attempt to create rings, each consisting of six Sedis tiles, by matching pips along adjacent tiles using only the 1-pip sides. Because the 1-pip sides only appear on alternating sides along the tiles, this creates aesthetically-pleasing geometric shapes, as in the photo below. And, that’s the point of Sedis – to be an interesting, useful evolution of ‘generic gaming devices’.

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sedis-rings

The Sedis game “Rings”

 

 

References

    1. Laird, Jay (2009). Encyclopedia of Play in Today’s Society. SAGE Publications. pp. 171–173.
    2. Finkel, Irving (2008). “Board Games”. Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C. Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 151
    3. Matz, David (2002). Daily Life of the Ancient Romans. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 94–95
    4. Ronan, Colin; Needham, Joseph (1986). The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China. Cambridge University Press. p. 55
    5. Michon, Daniel (2015). Archaeology and Religion in Early Northwest India: History, Theory, Practice. Routledge. p 183-200
    6. Lo, Andrew. “The Game of Leaves: An Inquiry into the Origin of Chinese Playing Cards,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 63, No. 3 (2000): 389-406.
    7. Rodney P. Carlisle (2 April 2009). Encyclopedia of Play. SAGE. p. 181.
    8. Hoyle, Edmond; Dawson, Lawrence Hawkins (1950). Hoyle’s games modernized. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
    9. Wilkinson, W.H. (1895). “Chinese Origin of Playing Cards”. American Anthropologist. VIII (1): 61–78.
    10. Playing Card, Wikipedia entry. 

How to Play Classic Board Games Peacefully This Holiday Season

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For many across the US and beyond, the winter holiday season – beginning with Thanksgiving and ending with New Year’s Day – is a festive and joyous time spent with family and friends. For many of the same, it’s also a time of stress, as the pressures of entertaining – or even just being under the direct scrutiny of those who may care about us the most – becomes all too real. One good solution which helps in both cases is to just play some tabletop games. The competitive spirit can help to alleviate the mood and focus our energy.

Some of us are a bit more competitive than others, and – taken to an extreme – that can exacerbate the negativity, rather than resolving it. In these cases, playing cooperative games is a great alternative to another flipped board. In fact, almost any game can be made cooperative; simply decide on a collective goal and work towards it. 

Don't let this be your post Thanksgiving table image via imgur

Don’t let this be your post-Thanksgiving table
image via imgur

Here are some suggestions on how you and your family may be able to play some classic board games cooperatively:

  • Chess/Checkers: If there are 4 or more of you, play Chess or Checkers in teams. Each team discusses the best move, arrives at a consensus, then makes the move.
  • Monopoly: Designate certain tokens as the ‘tenants’; they’re not allowed to buy properties. Then, collaborate to build the best real estate empire in the world – moving the tenants around and charging them for rent. Work together to build your monopoly empire.
  • Scrabble: Set a minimum word length – something like 5 letters. Then help each other find the best words. Learn new vocabulary along the way, and have fun together doing it.
  • Trivial Pursuit: Forget the board. Just ask the questions – and help each other with the answers. Learn about the strengths and weaknesses of each other’s knowledge.
  • Battleship: Okay, this one’s not cooperative, but… hold a Battleship tournament! Only one commander advances (or you can do it round robin style).

Not only can these tweaks keep the peace; it’s a great way to introduce younger children to tactile games. These examples of classic board games turned cooperative are only scratching the surface. Consider going to your local hobbyist game shop (especially available to those in a big city). Talk with the clerk and ask about cooperative games you can play – there may be a new, independent tabletop game that you should be introduced to.  Play doesn’t always have to be competitive – and, almost always, just playing and laughing can bring family together.

Dice, Dominoes, Playing Cards… Then Came Sedis

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Our assertion is that Sedis is only the fourth generic gaming device in existence today. But, what exactly is a “generic gaming device?”

The Wikipedia entry for dominoes asserts that “[a] domino set is a generic gaming device, similar to playing cards or dice, in that a variety of games can be played with a set.” This is a fair description of Sedis too, but how can we claim that it’s only the fourth extant such set – and, possibly, in humanity’s history?

photo credit Mayr via Creative Commons

photo credit: Mayr via Creative Commons

I’ve long believed this assertion to be true but, earlier this year, we undertook a study to validate it. Here’s how we did it:

First, we went to the most comprehensive database of tactile board/tabletop games of which we’re aware: Boardgamegeek.com. Specifically, we looked at their list of all items tagged as “game systems,” which consists of 215 purported game systems. We then categorized these products into one of six categories:

  • Singular Game: A product which is played using a singular (or highly-similar) set of game mechanics and rules
  • Multi/Related Games: A product which is played using a singular (or highly-similar) set of game mechanics but with variations of rules
  • Generic Game Device: A product with which multiple games with differing game mechanics and rules may be played, with deliberate and similar piece design, and which is not truly transcendent of language/cultural barriers
  • Universal Generic Game Device: A product with which multiple games with differing game mechanics and rules may be played, with deliberate and similar piece design, and which is truly transcendent of language/cultural barriers
  • Game System Variant: A product which is of any other category but is strongly derived from another generic game system
  • Generic Game Pack: A product with which multiple games with differing game mechanics and rules may be played, with non-similar and/or non-deliberate piece design

To begin the assessment, we filtered out the singular games, because these products do not allow for multiple games to be played, except under very minor variations of rules. This filter reduced the number of products from 215 to 21.

We then sorted the remaining products into the other five categories. In most cases, this was easy, but we did have to make some judgment calls. To minimize bias, we sought the input of a few outsiders to validate our own assessments, and we found their judgment to be consistent with our own.

In the end, our consensus is as follows:

  • Multi/Related Games: 10
  • Generic Game Device: 0
  • Universal Generic Game Device: 3
  • Game System Variant: 4
  • Generic Game Pack: 4

Interestingly, we could not find any ‘generic game device’ which was not a ‘universal generic game device’. The ones we found are dice, dominoes, and playing cards, in their order of historical development. In other words, it seems that, when generic game devices are created, they are done so in a way which overcomes language/cultural barriers; they are very often almost purely mathematical in construction.

This is how Sedis is designed, as well. Through Sedis, a large variety of games can be played, and new game mechanics are still being discovered.

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The Sedis game Reach for the Sky

Based on our assessment, it would seem that our assertion that Sedis is only the fourth extant generic game system is valid. 

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The Evolution of Sedis

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The cliche(d) quote of Thomas Edison goes, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Sedis started as a dream, from which I awoke at 3AM back in 2012. I ran downstairs and jotted down some notes, then worked vigorously to design all 60 tiles before my thoughts evaporated. I then produced the first version of Sedis, using my home printer. From there, we’ve gone through many iterations of the product, trying to make it better. Here’s a taste of some of the iterations which have led to the current form of Sedis:

sedis-evolution

From left to right, these are:
  1. The first (printed) version of Sedis — Note that the pips are arranged incorrectly on the two-pip sides.
  2. The first plastic resin version of Sedis, made by our friend and Hollywood prop designer William Hawk Edwards — It took a little while to apply the black dots to the indentions using fine-pointed black markers – 600 dots across the entire set.
  3. The first wood version of Sedis — This one is printed with a lacquer coating to preserve the ink. It’s a 1/4″ thick and 2-1/2″ wide on birch.
  4. The first engraved wood version of Sedis — We didn’t add the lacquer coating, because there was no ink; we later regretted this because we wanted to preserve the wood from skin oils. So, we made…
  5. Finally, the final engraved wood version of Sedis – with lacquer – also 1/4″ thick and 2-1/2″ wide on birch. Final, except… we then tested Sedis with dozens of people – friends, family, strangers – and we learned that they didn’t like the larger tiles, instead preferring smaller tile faces and thicknesses. So, we created…
  6. Final [smaller] engraved wood version of Sedis – with lacquer, but now 1/8″ thick and 2-1/8″ wide on birch.
Beautiful, clear tiles which can be used by kids and adults. And, so, we were done.
Until we turned them over…
back-of-sedis-tile

 

Pretty plain, unfortunately. What will we do with these? Well, playing cards have a mark on their back, often with the logo of the manufacturing company. So, we did that – and then we did it again, with some premium cherry tiles (instead of the birch). So, here’s where we are, with the birch tiles on the left and the cherry on the right.
 nefer-logo-tile
The logo on the birch tiles needed to be bigger, so we increased it on the later cherry ones – and we like it, so we’ll be including the larger logo on all the sets we’re taking to market through our product launch in December.
So, there you have it: Our Sedis journey thus far. Through its development, Edison’s message certainly feels true, even if it’s only taken a dozen or so tries to get it right. That’s the nature of bringing a new product to market, and we’ll continue to refine Sedis and our other products for our customers as we move forward.
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