2026/33 - Conveniences

DON QUIXOTE is a book ranging from 1,000 to over 2,000 pages in length, depending on the edition. I found a simplified version of 73 pages. Including the illustrations. Ever since the invention of the wheel, human beings have always sought out conveniences. Take the pizza cutter, a direct descendant of the invention of the wheel. There are limits, however. We use the lift but then go to the gym to keep fit. Or we pop into a bookshop to look for the abridged version of Don Quixote and find ourselves stopping in front of the TOP TEN bestsellers. So not just the summary of Don Quixote. But the summary of the bookshop itself. The ten books that others like best. To avoid the hassle of looking for a book we’d actually like. Well then. There’s more beyond the Top Ten. A few steps further on. Or downstairs. The underground. Even in the world of board games, there’s an underground scene. No, I’m not talking about the underground railway in the game SCOTLAND YARD. Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo and Leonardo are the greatest artists in history. But Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo and Leonardo are also the names of the Ninja Turtles. There are different levels of culture. High and low. Today, we would describe the four great artists of the past as mainstream. In contrast to other, perhaps equally talented, painters of the time whom we do not know. The underground of the Renaissance. The Ninja Turtles, on the other hand, are considered underground. Not just because they live underground. But because they belong to art forms considered minor, such as comics, cartoons, video games and B-movies. And even more minor still, board games. But above all because they are less famous. Although for some, the opposite may be true. That is, the Ninja Turtles are more famous. And Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo and Leonardo are more underground. So there is no high and no low. Mainstream does not mean beautiful. Underground does not mean ugly. Mainstream means famous. Underground means hidden. Hard to discover. A struggle to find. Like treasures. 

 

2026/32 - To be or not to be seen

A friend told me he doesn’t see our games about. For reasons of space, I’ll split this chapter into two parts. I’m not quite sure how to describe them. I’ve looked online to see what a two-part trilogy is called. It’s called a dilogy. That seems like a rather implausible term to me. Alternatively, it suggests duology. That seems even less plausible. Perhaps I’ll write a third chapter just so I can call it a trilogy. I apologise in advance because I’ve never liked things left half-finished. Like TV series with endings that don’t end. That said, hands up anyone who knows who Buzz Aldrin is. I don’t. Or at least, I didn’t know before reading Johan Harstad’s book BUZZ ALDRIN, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU IN ALL THE CONFUSION? Buzz Aldrin was the second man to set foot on the moon. He made history, and yet we don’t know who he was. Because he stepped down the ladder just a few seconds after Neil Armstrong. In a world where only the number ones matter, Buzz Aldrin is us. We haven’t broken any records for box office takings, sales, audience figures, awards, streaming, followers, likes or views. The mass media and algorithms love to talk about the number ones. Even trivial information. But trivial information about the number ones. The mass media and algorithms aren’t interested in the others. Sometimes they’re interested in the last ones. But they have to be the number ones amongst the last ones. Consequently, the others aren’t to be seen anywhere. Here it is. I remember a novel by STEPHEN KING. Strangely for him, it was a fantasy. Featuring kings, princes and wizards, it was called THE EYES OF THE DRAGON. One passage seemed to me to speak of the absurdity of invisibility. Because it is impossible for something that exists to become invisible. Even in a fairy tale with wizards and spells. The writer did point out, however, that it was possible to be present but not to be seen. That is the real way of being invisible. Like Buzz Aldrin. Like us. So it can happen that we fail to see our own games, even though they are there.

 

 2026/31 - The Cows

In 1970, PINK FLOYD released the cow album. It’s called that because there’s a cow on the cover. It’s actually called ATOM HEART MOTHER. Although I’ve never heard anyone call it that. Perhaps not even Pink Floyd themselves. Anyway. Listening to Pink Floyd at secondary school, back in the 90s, conferred the status of a true music connoisseur. An aura of musical superiority. But none of us true music connoisseurs ever admitted to having no idea what the cow on the cover meant. Because, as true music connoisseurs, none of us wanted to show the slightest sign of uncertainty. Those were the years before the internet. Before artificial intelligence. With encyclopaedias that nobody ever opened. So we kept our unanswered questions to ourselves. PINK FLOYD were a living legend. One of their legendary albums had a cow on the cover. They must have had their own legendary reasons. Today it’s easy to find out that, in reality, the cow on the cover has no connection whatsoever with the album. Just as, for that matter, the title ATOM HEART MOTHER makes no sense at all. It was a publicity stunt by the graphic designer to set them apart from other bands. From other album covers. But let’s take it a step further. In 2003, marketing expert Seth Godin wrote a book called THE PURPLE COW. In it, he goes beyond Pink Floyd. He says that to stand out in a herd of cows, a metaphor for the market, your cow has to be different. Purple, for example. Let’s talk about us. A few years ago, we entered the world of board games. To set ourselves apart, we launched with original packaging. Our cow. Year after year, we’ve added games to our series, trying to distinguish each new game from the previous ones in the series by changing the colour. Our purple cow. Now here’s the problem. We’re running out of colours.

 

2026/30 - Rejections

HARRY POTTER was rejected by 12 publishers. The script for BACK TO THE FUTURE was rejected by over 40 film studios. LINKIN PARK were rejected by 44 record labels. Even my own games, at the start of my career as a game designer, were rejected by around fifty publishers. So it struck me as a positive sign. But not all rejections are the same. Some rejections are more flattering than others. It’s one thing to be rejected by a classmate at primary school. It’s quite another to be rejected by Cindy Crawford. To stay within the same era. My prototype for BEST MOVIE was rejected by the Cindy Crawford of publishing houses. It was 2022. In Essen, Germany. My first time at the world’s largest board game fair. I was just a young board game designer, almost fifty. The owners of my favourite board game publisher in the world wanted to meet me. Whilst they were writing the history of board games. They wanted to meet me in person. No middlemen. Just them. And they wanted to play one of my games with me. I won’t name names because if you don’t know who they are, the story loses its impact. But I’ll try to convey the idea another way. It’s as if those of us who like to sing in the car or in the shower were to meet our favourite singer or band. I’m thinking of PEARL JAM. You can think of whoever you like. Who want to meet you. Not only that. Who ask you to sing with them. Not only that. Who ask you to sing a song you’ve written with them. You realise that you can still be happy even if PEARL JAM then tell you that the song isn’t bad but they’ve decided not to include it on their next album. I’ve used the metaphor of a song because songs, like games, hold memories. You listen to a song and think back to a person, a place, a time. You feel as though you’re in the company of that person, in that place, at that time. That’s how I feel when I play BEST MOVIE. I feel so good. 

 

2026/29 - Read the warnings carefully

Some artists express themselves through music. Others through images. Still others through sculpture. Dance. Or writing. Some write novels. Some write essays. Some write poetry. Game designers express themselves by writing rules. The equivalent of dishwasher instruction manuals. It’s a bit less poetic, but that’s how it is. But there’s another problem. All other forms of art leave room for the imagination and for personal interpretation of the work. Even if it’s misunderstood. And the work is beautiful all the same. Indeed, sometimes it’s even more beautiful when misunderstood. Not so with us. If the rules leave room for even the slightest possibility of misunderstanding, they give rise to forums where people try to interpret words, pronouns and commas. Like archaeologists faced with ancient Sumerian inscriptions. Or like two lovers. You know the one where he asks if she prefers red or blue. She says red. But was he supposed to realise that she said red but actually meant blue? That’s exactly what can happen when reading the rules of board games. When setting up my FORMULA 5 game, a card is placed under each car. Always and without exception, I should add. In the following paragraph, a sentence states that cars without a player do not receive cards. Some people have, quite rightly, misunderstood this to refer to the initial set-up. Just to give an example. So imagine the psychological pressure to which the author and publisher are subjected. In my case, it’s the same person. So it’s double the pressure. Imagine how a human being might become obsessive-compulsive after years of drafting rules. In a constant quest for absolute perfection and maximum clarity. And imagine how I might feel when faced with the inconceivable sloppiness of a recipe that says to preheat the oven to 210–230 degrees and bake for 10–15 minutes. 

 

2026/28 - Christmas every day

At the seaside, I saw a Christmas star. In the middle of summer. Even though the lights were switched off, waiting for next Christmas. After all, why take them down when you’ll just have to put them back up again next Advent? I’ll change the subject, but I’ll come back to it later. It’ll probably seem strange to people in the US and the UK. But for those of us who don’t speak English, it’s perfectly normal to listen to music where we don’t understand a single word. So for us, the PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT LYRICS label on CDs was pointless. Back in the 90s, EXTREME sang MORE THAN WORDS. It was a slow song. It must be a love song. We all thought so. And that was enough for us. LUCA CARBONI and JOVANOTTI recorded an Italian cover of that song, completely changing the lyrics. Perhaps because they simply assumed that nobody had understood the original English lyrics. The effect, for those who knew the original song – which was everyone back then – was a bit strange. It was a bit like watching a film after having read the book it was based on. We’ve all said it at one time or another: the book is a completely different matter. But it was also because, in those days, Italian-language covers didn’t seem like serious business. Just like the zany parodies on LEONE DI LERNIA. The chorus of the Italian version of MORE THAN WORDS begins with O È NATALE TUTTI I GIORNI (Either it’s Christmas every day) and ends with the words that give the song its title O NON È NATALE MAI (Or it’s never Christmas). And that’s what I thought of when I recently came across three different new reviews of MERRY CHRISTMAS. Our Christmas game. In the middle of summer. Perhaps they played it at Christmas and then reviewed it belatedly. Who knows. But I like to think they played it under a beach umbrella. Not caring about the season. Or the latest releases. Or trends. Perhaps whilst listening to Mariah Carey singing ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU. Which, for all we know from the lyrics, could just as easily be a summer hit. 

 

2026/27 - Sunset photos

Sunset photos have always reminded me of adverts. For example, those images of hotels where they try to make the hotel look better than it actually is. Using a wide-angle lens to make the swimming pool look bigger than it is. From an angle where you can’t see the train passing by. And where you can’t hear the music from the nearby nightclub in the picture. Sunset has always aroused a certain mistrust in me. Perhaps because I grew up listening to SKIANTOS. In their song COSA PRETENDI DA UN PAESE CHE HA LA FORMA DI UNA SCARPA (What Do You Expect from a Country Shaped Like a Shoe), they sing about singer-songwriters who are always ready to pull the wool over your eyes with sunsets. Since becoming a publisher, I’ve become more familiar with the world of advertising. And with sunset photos. My first tentative foray into the subject was reading Giuseppe Morici’s book entitled ‘FARE MARKETING RIMANENDO BRAVE PERSONE (Doing marketing whilst remaining decent people). Because, as well as sunsets, I’ve always been wary of adverts too. Because I’ve always associated them with appearances. Not with likeability. Whereas friendship is all about likeability. Not appearances. And I think that advertising is something that has to do with friendship. And therefore with likeability. That’s how I see it. I start from the premise that everyone in the world I don’t know is likeable and a potential friend. And I find it hard to separate products from the people behind them. If I like them, we become friends. If, on the other hand, they’re only hanging out with me for convenience, then no. If they’re too pushy, then no. If they’re not sincere, then no. ZEUS JUNIOR will be in shops soon. It won’t make you lose weight. Nor will it make you look a few years younger. And people on the street won’t turn to look at you if you’re walking along holding a copy of the game. Not even if you’re walking at sunset.

 

2026/26 - Teenagers of today

When LUIS MIGUEL sang NOI RAGAZZI DI OGGI (us teenagers of today), we were the teenagers of today. Today, however, we’ve become the sort who say there are no longer any mid-seasons. And we speak ill of the younger generations. Ever since we stopped being part of them. We board game enthusiasts, moreover, set ourselves up as champions of a healthy lifestyle, based on genuine human relationships, and we’re the first to condemn technology. We’re horrified at the very thought of a board game that requires an app. And we look down with an air of superiority on the teenagers with their mobile phones at bus stops. Forgetting that in our day we didn’t wait for the bus with a mobile in our hands simply because mobiles didn’t exist yet. Not because we were any better. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, I used to wait for the bus playing video games in cafés. Hence the idea for SPACE GALAXY. But anyway. Today I saw some young people playing a card game at the bus stop. Let’s be honest. How many of us board game enthusiasts, as teenager, played cards on a bench at a bus stop? Mobile phones didn’t exist, but card games certainly did. From the height of our enthusiasm, we can certainly claim that in our day there were no card games as good as those of today. That’s true. But isn’t the truth, perhaps, that we didn’t play board games at their age? What if today’s teenagers are better than the teenagers we used to be? The French philosopher MICHEL SERRES wrote an essay entitled FORMERLY EVERYTHING WAS BETTER. He was 87 at the time. In it, he argues that the world today is better than what we nostalgically call the ‘good old days’. After all, we’ve just admitted it. That today’s board games are better than the games of the old days. In other words, at least as far as board games are concerned, we live in a better world. Well done, teenagers. Keep it up.

 

2026/25 - Rome wasn’t built in a day

My daughter asked me which three new games we’ll be publishing in the MINI CARD GAME series. I proudly showed her the first copies of BONUS MALUS, SPACE GALAXY and ZEUS JUNIOR as a sneak preview. She replied that they were old games. From her point of view, she’s right. Because she’s been playing the prototypes for years. BONUS MALUS for as long as four years, in fact. Albeit different versions. It feels like an eternity. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither is a board game. Not even a simple board game. Quite apart from the reference to the medieval proverb, which I thought was a quote from MORCHEEBA. It’s true. It takes time for the illustrations, the graphics and the printing. Just as it takes time to build Rome. It’s no coincidence that it’s called the Eternal City. But not that long. The issue is something else entirely. Compulsive shopping, but in reverse. We’ve all been there: buying something – a board game, for example – and then regretting it. Perhaps straight away, or after weeks, months or years. There you go. There’s also the opposite risk. That a publisher might regret the game it has published. Perhaps straight away, or after weeks, months or years. Let’s call it ‘compulsive publishing’. Because once you’ve published a game, you can’t change it anymore. It does happen, actually. But it’s better if it doesn’t. So I wait for the test of time. Four years doesn’t mean I’ve been working non-stop on the same game for four years. I regularly replay old prototypes. I regularly ask myself if I can improve them. But for the most part, I wait. Like someone making wine. Until a game feels ready for publication. Because I think that if I still like it after years, I’ll probably like it for a long time. Perhaps not for eternity. Like Rome. But at least for a while.

 

2026/24 - Beauty to be experienced

Young children listen to fairy tales and learn that people are divided into good and bad. That the good are beautiful and the bad are ugly. That things are divided into beautiful and ugly. In reality, the good and the bad in fairy tales are meant to be two sides of the same personality. That all people contain both. But we don’t know this. Or we don’t remember it. Or, in any case, we’re too tired even to think about tackling the complex psychological nuances of the human soul when we tell fairy tales. So: good and bad. Beautiful and ugly. Time for bed. Goodnight kiss. BGG stands for BOARDGAMEGEEK, the world’s leading website for all board game enthusiasts. Where little children, who have since grown up, rate the games. Almost all the games on BGG have received a range of ratings from 1 to 10. Meaning that the same game is worth a 1 to some people. To others, it’s worth 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10. Even the most famous games. Even the games that have made history. I could proudly point out that the lowest rating for my games is currently a 2, not a 1. But I wanted to say something else. That games aren’t simply good or bad. But that people enjoy them. Or that someone else enjoys them. Which strikes me as a wonderful thing. But actually, I wanted to say something else again. The ratings on BGG don’t range from ‘good’ to ‘bad’. But from ‘I’d play this all the time’ to ‘I’d never play this’. Which strikes me as a wonderful thing. That beauty isn’t defined by standards of beauty. But that beauty is defined by how happy experiencing something makes me. For example. A book isn’t good or bad. It’s a book I’d reread or one I wouldn’t. Or: on a scale of 1 to 10, how much would I want to reread it? The same can be said of a film, a song or a painting. How often would I want to look at this painting again? Of course, if I found BEAUTIFUL (soap opera, 1987 – still running) absolutely stunning, I might not feel all that keen to watch it all over again. But perhaps another side of my personality would. 

 

2026/23 - The Right Place

We’ve been used to being judged from a young age. At school. And we’ve been used to never getting top marks. But whilst, years ago, the privilege of telling you that you’re nothing special was reserved for teachers, ever since the internet came along, this pleasure has been shared by everyone. Clearly, every judgement is subjective. If online judges are fans of long, complex board games, the result can only be – to put it simply – that the longer and more complex the game, the higher the rating. A category, incidentally, into which my games do not fall. And a category of online judges into which, say, my aunt does not fall. Even though she does play from time to time. Hence the importance of context. If, at Oktoberfest, you were asked to rate a new Bach flower tea, you couldn’t exactly expect much enthusiasm. Because the judges are never exactly a representative sample of humanity. In fact, my aunt probably wouldn’t be at Oktoberfest. To get top marks, you need to be in the right place. For example. If the new Bach flower tea were presented at the ‘Herbal Tea Oktoberfest’. If such a thing exists. Anyway. My game FASHION received excellent reviews because it happened to be in two of the right places. The first. The GIOCONAUTA website, which – despite preferring long, complex games – is always kind to our little games, especially when you can play nasty tricks on your opponents. The second. SIMONA (The Beginner’s Thread), a seamstress and content creator. Between crochet magazines and a bit of cross-stitch, she’s shown her seamstress followers a game of FASHION on her channel. A content creator who, incidentally, might actually be of interest to my aunt.

 

2026/22 - The complexity of simplicity

In 1991, the comedian ENZO IACCHETTI released an album of CANZONI BONSAI (Bonsai Songs). Simple, short songs, each lasting less than a minute. ‘To be less of a nuisance,’ he says. Listening to this sort of thing when you’re young probably leads you, as an adult, to invent MINI CARD GAMES. Anyway. I love simplicity. But I’m not the only one. Otherwise, they wouldn’t call our graphic designer Arianna ‘Ari’. As if ‘Arianna’ were too complex a name. Let me get to the point. I like simple titles. Simple to write. To pronounce. To remember. But there’s a problem. Simple titles are a limited edition. Let me explain. There are currently over 160,000 board games listed on BOARDGAMEGEEK. One hundred and sixty thousand. The problem isn’t coming up with new games. The problem is coming up with new titles. Because, whilst the world of ideas may well expand, the same cannot be said for our vocabularies. This is what happens at a publishing house. You choose a simple title. You check. There are already games with that name. You choose another simple title. You check. There are already games with that name. And so on. Until you lose patience and: a) you give up and choose a title identical to existing games, or b) you choose an original but complex title and don’t care that it would have been better to choose a simple one. Whilst with the last trilogy we opted for solution a), with the new trilogy we’ve opted for solution b). The next games are called BONUS MALUS, SPACE GALAXY and ZEUS JUNIOR. Never mind if they’re harder to write, pronounce or remember. And Ari’s happy because he prefers titles that span two lines. At least that avoids any confusion. Shall we play GARDEN? Which one? The 2010 version or the 2025 one? It sounds a bit like we’re talking about wines. In any case, I prefer the 2025 vintage. But I’m biased. One last thing. I’d have liked to call our publishing house BONSAI. I checked. There was already a publishing house with that name.

 

2026/21 - The great titles of yesteryear

A great title doesn’t make a film, a book, a song or a game any better. But a great title does sell more. It seems that even in Hollywood, contracts have been signed without knowing anything other than the title. In fact, we’ve all been drawn in by a great title. We’ve all also been let down by a catchy title. But we certainly can’t blame those who tried to come up with a catchy title for that film, that book, that song or that game. Because, after all, we have to call things something. It’s worth trying to find a catchy title. Which is why we, as people of today, are used to attention-grabbing titles. Sometimes they’re so enigmatic they border on the incomprehensible. Like the sunglasses in FRANCO BATTIATO’s song. To lend them more charisma and that characteristic air of mystery. If there’s one thing that has always struck me about old paintings, it’s the clarity of their titles. For example. If a painting depicts a girl with a pearl earring, the painting is called GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. Clear. Monet painted a picture called WOMAN WITH A PARASOL TURNED TOWARDS THE LEFT. Even clearer. I remember a show in which the comedian PAOLO ROSSI poked fun at the person who had named the newspaper ‘The Newspaper’. There must be someone, he said, who has named his son “son” and his dog “dog”. At a meeting in Germany with German and French distributors, more or less the same thing happened to me when it came to deciding on the titles of some of my games. A game about fashion? Let’s call it FASHION. A game set in a garden? Let’s call it GARDEN. A game where the best film wins? Let’s call it BEST FILM. And that’s how the titles FASHION, GARDEN and BEST FILM came about.

 

2026/20 - The bread dilemma

Cellophane isn’t the only thing that links the kitchen to new board games. Let’s say we’ve got some bread left over from yesterday. Today, we have a choice between yesterday’s bread and today’s bread. Yesterday’s bread is a bit stale but it’s still good. Today’s bread is fresh, crisp and smells of new bread. Just as new games smell of newness. If I choose yesterday’s bread, tomorrow today’s bread will be a bit stale. If I choose today’s bread, I feel guilty because I hate to throw away yesterday’s bread. Which is still good. The same dilemma arises every day in our small publishing house. Should we devote time and energy to promoting the games we’ve already published? Or should we devote time and energy to trying to improve the next games we’ll be publishing? In the first case, it’s a shame because we want to do even better. In the second case, it’s a shame because we’re convinced of the quality of what we’ve done so far. You might think it’s not true that games are like bread. That they don’t go stale. And you’re right. That’s how it is. Or rather. It should be like that. But at the same time, you’re not right. Because if shops, distributors and players only ask for new games – if they always choose the freshest bread – the old games will no longer be available in shops, will no longer be reprinted, but above all, will no longer be played. That is the old age of games. If board games could speak. If board games could sing. Their favourite song would be FOREVER YOUNG. I want to be forever young.

 

2026/19 - Thrills

“Garden is one of those games that manages to achieve a great deal with very little. A simple rule, a handful of cards and fifteen minutes are all it takes to create a light-hearted challenge that is anything but trivial. There is surprising depth beneath this carefree façade.”
LE CRONACHE DEL GIOCO

There are different kinds of shivers. Shivers from the cold. Shivers of fear. Or, for example, a game designer’s shivers. I got shivers down my spine reading these words dedicated to my game. I’d love for people to think that way about my games. That’s what poets are for. To translate thoughts into words. If only I had the words, I’d tell you. As Max Pezzali sings in UNA CANZONE D’AMORE (A love song). Pabis tells you so. In his blog, LE CRONACHE DEL GIOCO. Here’s the link. GARDEN is my most poetic game. You have to pick flowers from a meadow to make a bouquet. After seeking out my ‘minor’ games, Indiana Pabis moved on to my ‘major’ ones. Duty before pleasure. By ‘minor’ I mean those two games from the MINI CARD GAME series that were excluded from international markets. By ‘major’ I mean all the other eight. The ones that feature in the charts. The ones that receive high ratings. The most beloved. Beyond the poetry, the ones that sell the most. I pointed out to my distributors that the only two games excluded from international markets are a cooperative game and a semi-cooperative game. All the others are competitive. At the mention of the word ‘cooperative’, silence fell over the room. Shivers. There are players who shudder at the mere mention of the word ‘co-operative’. And publishers and distributors are often made up of players. Who shudder. Even the poet Pabis shudders. Beneath the poet’s exterior beats the heart of a player. The sweetness of poetry does not conceal the true nature of the human soul. “Our gaze will inevitably turn to our neighbours/ We cannot ignore what the others are up to/ Perhaps deciding to take a flower, not so much because we need it, but to thwart their strategy.”

 

2026/18 - Indiana Pabis and the Cursed Game

“This game will probably never top the charts, nor will it win a Spiel des Jahres.”
BIG CREAM

One player against everyone else. A spray can in hand. Dreams of freedom in the heart. To some, just a vandal. To others, a modern-day poet. These aren’t Shakespeare’s words. They’re Pabis’s. On his blog, LE CRONACHE DEL GIOCO, he went in search of another of my hidden games: SPRAY. At the time of its publication, it had been cursed by BIG CREAM, as mentioned above. Quoted only in part. I’ve omitted the positive conclusion for narrative purposes. SPRAY is a MINI CARD GAME currently excluded from international markets and generally overlooked. Some say it’s too complex. Although calling a MINI CARD GAME ‘complex’ might seem like an oxymoron. When I was taught about oxymorons at school, I wondered if I’d ever use them in real life. Well, here we are. But in my opinion, the problem lies elsewhere. In SPRAY, there’s the basic version and the expert variant. Which is actually the proper version of the game. However, to play it, you need to have played several games of the basic version first. But let’s be honest. How many of us play more than one game of the same game? The content creator going by the pseudonym IL COLLEZIONISTA DI PRIME PARTITE (the collector of first matches) might not even reply to me. But that’s not all. How many of us play more than one game of the same game with the same group? Because all it takes is for one player to change, and you have to start all over again. And I’ve become so used to the idea that it takes rare astral coincidences to be fully appreciated that when a shop once told me their best-selling MINI CARD GAME was SPRAY, I found it strange. SPRAY is my ugly duckling. It needs a bit of time to become a swan. 

 

2026/17 - In Search of Lost Games

I admire the champions. But I feel sympathy for the others. Take the World Cup, for example. I support one team. But if they win, I feel sorry for the other team. I immediately start to like them. And if the losing team is knocked out, I like them even more. Because I might think they didn’t deserve to lose. But I like them just as much even if they did deserve to lose. In the film *The Karate Kid*, a young Ralph Macchio arrives in a new town. He gets beaten up, and I immediately take a liking to him. The only person who welcomes him is an elderly Japanese man played by Pat Morita. The same thing happened to me in 2022. Without me being beaten up. When I first arrived at Italy’s biggest event dedicated to board game designers. I was welcomed by the not-so-old and definitely not Japanese Alessandro Pabis. Who I didn’t know was the content creator behind the blog LE CRONACHE DEL GIOCO. In my defence, though, not even Ralph Macchio knew at the start of the film that Pat Morita was a karate expert. Pabis was the first to write about my early prototypes. These included an old version of DO NOT DISTURB, which he had already described as ‘Really lovely, well done!’. In bold and with a full stop at the end. Because when you’re a new author looking for validation, you pay attention to the font and punctuation too. Today, Pabis has dedicated a lengthy article and a video to the final version of DO NOT DISTURB, which has been in shops for almost two years. Which you can find at this link. A lovely review. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left you the link. But I’m telling you about it for another reason. Because Pabis has started writing about my games that have been excluded from international markets. Those games that are talked about less. Or not at all. Except in a general way as part of a series. And to think that there are those who consider them among the best. For example, a bookseller in Lugano keeps ordering only DO NOT DISTURB. One day I asked her why. She replied that she keeps recommending it to customers because she really likes it. And because it’s the only one of my games she’s learnt to play.

 

2026/16 - The Changing Nature of Beauty

Some of my games have become really beautiful. Just in the last few days. They weren’t before, but they have become so. I’m not talking about opinions. To me, this game is beautiful. To you, this game is ugly. Games don’t change. It’s their beauty that changes. When I first released my games, they weren’t actually all that great. But then content creators spoke highly of them, and so they became quite nice. Then they received good reviews on some specialist websites and became ‘not bad’. And then they were distributed in many countries, such as Italy, France and Germany, and became beautiful. And for the past few days, they’ve become absolutely stunning. Let me explain. Try to imagine a band playing a gig in your local pub. Now try to imagine the same band playing a gig in a bar in New Orleans, Seattle or Las Vegas. It’s the same thing. But it isn’t the same thing. In both cases, the audience consists of a few elderly people. But in the first case, during the gig, the elderly people have their eyes glued to the TV showing the football match. In the second case, during the gig, the elderly people have their eyes glued to the TV showing the American football match. And yet we imagine two different kinds of greatness. What happens in the United States always seems to be better. The same thing happens when I talk about my games. Hi. Hi, how are you? It’s been a while since we last saw each other. I’m fine, thanks. What have you been up to? I’ve released a few games. Oh. They’re on sale in games shops. Oh. And they’ve been available in the US for a few days now. WOW!

 

2026/15 - Holidays, so to speak

Holidays are an invention. From the 1800s. Apparently by an English doctor. Before holidays were invented, if someone needed a rest, they simply rested. Since holidays were invented, if someone needs a rest, they go on holiday. And come back more tired than before. That’s progress for you. In fact, these days, to put it vaguely, we say we go on holiday to recharge our batteries. Whatever that means. Not least because some people go to New York to recharge. As in the book NAIF.SUPER by the Norwegian writer Erlend Loe. Because there’s a great energy in New York. I don’t think ‘energy’ refers to optimal conditions for rest. But I’ve never been there. Maybe that’s the case. Anyway. What the English doctor advised his patients in the 1800s – and subsequently, indirectly, all of us Western sheep in the spirit of mass emulation – is that the answer to our problems lies in a particular place. That happiness lies in a particular place. A place other than where we currently find ourselves. Madam, you need some rest; I’m prescribing a holiday for you. Can’t I rest at home? No. But I live in a lovely cottage in the countryside. No, madam, you must go and rest in Egypt. Every now and then, even I, as a games designer, need to recharge my batteries. And so, like a good Western sheep, I go on holiday. To Orzinuovi. A small village near Brescia, in Italy. But, contrary to what you might superficially think, I don’t go there to rest. I go to recharge my batteries. Orzinuovi is my New York. For the past five years, at the start of every summer. I go there to test game prototypes. Mine and others’. For a whole weekend. Together with fellow game designers. Content creator friends. Playtester friends. Organiser friends. Friends I haven’t met yet but will become friends with. And I return home tired. But brimming with new ideas. No, dear 19th-century English doctor. For me, holidays aren’t about places. For me, holidays are about people. 

 

2026/14 - Neutrality

You play to win. Although in life I have sometimes lost on purpose. Against my children when they were little. But that’s another story. Ah, once I actually considered losing on purpose. Against a publisher. I thought that if I let him win, I’d have a better chance of him publishing my game. But then I thought, what would I look like if I, who know my game better than anyone, lost to the first person who came along? So I won. The publisher was actually quite put out. Perhaps I shouldn’t have won by such a landslide. But then he published the game anyway. But that’s another story too. You play to win, as I said, but I accept losing calmly. No problem at all. However. I do get upset if I lose because of tie-break criteria. I remember it well. A friend and I scored more points than our opponents. But exactly the same number of points between us. That was fine by me. Like Tamberi and Bershim in the high jump at the Tokyo Olympics. Can we have two gold medals? Yes. Everyone’s happy. But my friend insisted on consulting those diabolical, unnatural tiebreaker criteria contained in paragraphs of the rules that I’d completely skipped over. Which decreed that he was the sole winner. I was gutted. Just as Bruce Wayne, after witnessing the murder of his parents, decided to become BATMAN. So I decided that if I ever became a game designer, my games would have no tiebreaker criteria. Victory is shared. Stop. Arianna, the graphic designer behind the stunning visuals in our games, told me that she laughs about this when I’m not around. And that she sums it up in two words: ‘He’s Swiss.’

 

2026/13 - All’s well that ends

“Give me a boat, said the man. And what, may I ask, do you want a boat for? asked the king. To go in search of the unknown island, replied the man. Nonsense, there are no more unknown islands, they’re all on the maps. Only known islands appear on maps. And what is this unknown island you wish to seek? If I could tell you, then it wouldn’t be unknown.’”
José Saramago, The Tale of the Unknown Island

It’s happened to all of us. Some win. Some lose. Those who won enjoyed the game. Those who lost did not. Those who won say the game is good. Those who lost say the game is bad. Everything that has a beginning has an end, says the film THE MATRIX. And as the apocalyptic final sign at the Cannes Festival des Jeux warns. It’s not like that for game designers. I was asked how many games I’ve invented. Currently 71. I’ve published 15. The other 56 aren’t finished. What does it mean that they aren’t finished? Inventing a game isn’t a recipe. It’s not like in a sushi restaurant where you see a photo of the dish that’s about to arrive. Inventing a game is a journey in search of a destination you don’t know. Actually, no. It’s a journey in search of a destination you’re not even sure exists. Like the man who asks the king for a boat in Nobel Prize winner Saramago’s story. A concept later summarised by the 883: “Nord sud ovest est e forse quel che cerco neanche c'è." (North south west east and perhaps what I’m looking for doesn’t even exist). How do you know if a game is finished? Some great designers say it’s a feeling. At a certain point, you just feel that the game is finished. Other great designers say that a game is never finished. That at a certain point in the publishing process, they have to decide that it’s finished. I, in my own small way, answered like this. During a playtest session, a player played one of my prototypes. And he came last, out of five. He asked to play it again. And he came last again, out of five. Then he said to me. I liked the game. A lot. Even though I lost. I liked losing.

 

2026/12 - Praise be to the content creator

Once upon a time, there were Dante, Petrarch and Manzoni. Today, there are bloggers, YouTubers and content creators. Back in the 1980s, a Japanese TV programme discussed the benefits of chocolate. The very next day, chocolate was SOLD OUT across the whole of Japan. I was told this by some Japanese people. I have no reason to doubt that it actually happened. But it matters little. This is what people think happens when a content creator talks about a board game. As a publisher, I can assure you that this is not the case. Although I wouldn’t swear to it for Japan. Content creators are storytellers. We like to listen to them gathered round the fire of our mobile phones. Like children enchanted by wise old men recounting marvellous, distant experiences. Some even express opinions. Of course. They’re wise. But let’s be honest. Hands up anyone who’s never been wary of a glowing review. And hands up anyone who’s never been intrigued by a scathing one. Content creators are the equivalent of photos of babies in hospital maternity wards. They announce the birth. Tobia has been born. Terraforming Mars has been born. It’s the same thing. That is why we should be grateful for it. Because life is worth celebrating. Then each of us is capable of forming our own personal opinion. All the more so since ‘several studies suggest that board game enthusiasts tend to have an above-average IQ or, at the very least, develop superior cognitive skills’. We’re players. We’re used to making choices. And it seems we’re pretty smart too. So. Just because your closest friend says to you, “You know, I reckon you and (name of person you don’t know) would be a good match,” doesn’t mean you go up to (name of person you don’t know) and ask, “Will you marry me?”. I mean, you do form at least some sort of idea before making any decision. Whether it’s a big one or a small one. Like buying a board game.

 

2026/11 - Old news

German philosophers between the 1700s and the 1800s coined the concept of Zeitgeist. Which means ‘the spirit of the times’. And it’s the title of an album by the Smashing Pumpkins. But that’s beside the point. If something is beautiful, it is beautiful. It doesn’t matter whether it’s new or old. But the world doesn’t see it that way. If you ask for a book from a couple of years ago in a bookshop, you’re looked at askance as if you were asking for the original manuscript of the Divine Comedy. The world constantly offers up novelties that are soon replaced by new novelties. Old novelties simply become old. And so on. It’s not a question of beautiful/ugly but of new/old. From which it follows, by the transitive property, that new = beautiful and old = ugly. Welcome to the 2000s. At my first PLAY in Bologna, I felt like a guest. As if I were visiting someone’s home. And it seemed wrong to turn up empty-handed. The fair, a product of its time, demands the latest novelties—if possible, the very latest novelties. From the Swiss mountains of Heidi. Much like Pozzetto in THE COUNTRY BOY. I set off for the fair. With a few new things. Out of politeness. Like a teetotaller bringing a bottle of cheap wine to a dinner with friends. I brought what I had, namely the first copies of the three new games that will be in the shops, but only in the autumn. In the format stipulated by the fair: demos that couldn’t be bought. In other words, you could try out the three new games but you couldn’t buy them. Just think how mean that is. In my opinion, Dante forgot to include a circle of Hell for people who behaved like that in life. We let them play all day Friday. The response was brilliant. But on Saturday – precisely because of that brilliant response – feeling guilty towards all those who had been asking us in vain to buy them, we decided to hide them. Behind the counter. And to play and sell only the old games. Like people from the 1900s. You can disagree with your own Zeitgeist.

 

2026/10 - Enchanted

Walking into a board game fair is like stepping into another dimension. Like Schwarzenegger in *Last Action Hero*. Or like *Roger Rabbit* for those unfamiliar with John McTiernan’s film. He may not be Akira Kurosawa, but he’s created his own masterpieces all the same. Italy’s biggest board game fair is held every year in Bologna and is called PLAY. No one has yet figured out whether it’s a masculine or feminine noun. Some call it ‘la PLAY’. Others call it ‘il PLAY’. It matters little. For the first time in the year-and-a-half history of our publishing house, we were there too. A wonderful memory. Although I remember some things, others I don’t. That’s how memory works. It’s as if there were a data limit. I remember, for example, that in secondary school during religious education lessons I watched DERSU UZALA. Why on earth did my memory choose to recall a Russian film directed by a Japanese director? It was only many years later that I discovered it was Akira Kurosawa. I’d probably mistaken him at the time for Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball. It’s a mystery to me. Anyway. I remember that, before leaving a campsite, Dersu Uzala prepares firewood and food for those who will come after him. He cares about people he doesn’t know. He thinks of those who will come after him. That is the film’s beautiful message. Whilst I was at PLAY, or at PLAY, I thought that is what happens to me as a games designer. Whilst I’m designing games, I worry about people I don’t know. I think of those who will play them after me. To date, over 50,000 copies of my games have been sold worldwide. Apart from friends and family, the rest are strangers. They are numbers. Numbers of shops. Orders from distributors. Sales reports. The most magical thing for me about the fair was that it turned these numbers into people. Like Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. People I was able to meet. Exchange a few words with. Play together. Be happy, for a moment, together.

 

2026/09 - Where there are six cooks, there’s nothing to eat

Everyone knows that Switzerland is small. Many know that, despite its small size, three different languages are spoken there: German, French and Italian. Few know that, in reality, four are spoken. There’s also ‘Romansh’. But very few people speak it. Anyway. In Switzerland, different languages are spoken. That’s why we rely on multilingual regulations. Everyone’s happy. The problem is the titles. They have to suit everyone. In German, French and Italian. Which is why, often, when three parties are arguing, the fourth one wins. No, not Romansh. But English. There are, however, places that couldn’t care less about our multilingual constraints. Take Poland, for example. Which has ditched our mundane English titles in favour of the more charming Polish ones. A language of which, until yesterday, I knew only the words Lewandowski and Boniek. Yet I’ve discovered it’s full of beautiful expressions. Like ‘it’s not my circus, they’re not my monkeys’ to say it’s none of my business. Like ‘throwing peas at the wall’ when someone won’t listen. Or like the title of this chapter.
METEO has become TAKI MAMY KLIMAT. Which means ‘what can you do, this is the weather we’ve got’, a lovely way of saying that that’s just the way things are, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
WOOL STREET has become LOWCA TRENDOW. Which means “trend hunter”. Moving away from English makes sense. Although I reckon “trendow” still has some English roots.
BLUE PENGUIN has become KOLEJNO ODLICZ. Two words. My first thought is that it must mean ‘blue penguin’ in Polish. But no. It means ‘countdown’, ‘counting in order’ or ‘taking the roll call one by one’. Depending on the machine translator. I fail to see the relevance to the theme. But in reality, it’s just envy of those who can afford poetry.

 

2026/08 - His Highness

Keith Johnstone, a master of theatrical improvisation, says of creativity: ‘You don’t need to worry about what “comes out”. What “comes out” is only important to critics and psychologists.’ To understand why small games “come out” of me, I should perhaps look into my subconscious. Or perhaps into my childhood. Who knows. Perhaps I associate small things with happy memories. Perhaps with the Smurfs. Whereas with big games I associate the negative figure of Gargamel. Who knows. But this is the answer I give myself. I wanted to tiptoe into the world of board games. Let me try to explain myself better. In game design, there are no categories. It’s as if, simply by picking up a table tennis bat, you suddenly found yourself at Wimbledon playing against Roger Federer. There are no half-measures. You’re either a game designer or you’re not. And if you are, you find yourself in the ring with the big guns. Like a Royal Rumble. In 2022, the first time I attended the world’s largest games fair in Essen, Germany, I met Antoine Bauza. One of the world’s best game designers. You can imagine how awkward it was for me to have to answer ‘Yes’ to his question: ‘Are you a game designer too?’. It’s as if Sean Connery had asked me: “Are you an actor too?” and I’d replied: “Yes” because I’d played the part of a shepherd in the parish Christmas play. It wasn’t a lie because, technically, I’d already signed my first contract and my first game was due to be published a few months later. In my defence, it seemed intellectually honest to frame the situation correctly. But at the time, I didn’t think of the comparison with Sean Connery. So I pointed out that if he was a mountain, I was a hill. He replied: “You’ve got to start somewhere.” Ever since then, I’ve held dear the idea that a hill is a mountain that has only just begun. That hills dream of becoming mountains. My games are hills.

 

2026/07 - What a holiday in Egypt

Some people create great literature. Great cinema. Great music. We, on the other hand, make little games. So small, in fact, that we’ve added the words ‘MINI CARD GAME’ to the box to make it clear what’s inside. When a friend meets another friend with a new haircut, she says, ‘You look lovely!’ It doesn’t matter if she really means it. You say it to avoid any awkwardness.  More or less the same thing happens when someone sees our little games for the first time. To avoid any awkwardness, they say to me: “That way they’ll fit in my suitcase!” Which sounds less like a compliment and more like “I might consider playing your games on holiday—that is, on those rare days of the year when I actually go away”. Although, I don’t know about you, but when I go on holiday I take IKEA bags full of board games precisely because those are the days of the year when I have even more time to play. But I’m biased. After all, the mass tourist destinations of the people I hang out with aren’t New York, Paris and Venice. They’re Cannes (late February), Bologna (late May) and Essen (late October). Destinations where you don’t need to bring games because it would be like taking beer to Oktoberfest. So no, we didn’t design the small boxes for our games with holidays in mind. Nor did we do it to stop you from using the excuse, ‘I didn’t buy them because I didn’t have any more space at home’. But for other reasons. Which I’ll tell you about another time, because I’ve set myself a maximum word count per chapter. Then I discover that Alberto and Valentina really did take our little toys on holiday to Egypt. Just like the garden gnomes in the film *Amélie*. And that perhaps some of those who tell me, “That way they’ll fit in the suitcase!” actually mean it.

 

2026/06 - Playing your own games

In life, it happens that you end up doing something else. Even to Hollywood stars. Julia Roberts. Brad Pitt. Jennifer Aniston. They’re actors who used to be waiters. Or, depending on your point of view, they’re waiters who act. I wonder when you become something else. A game designer, for instance. Being a game designer isn’t a degree. It happened to me. When a game I invented became bigger than me. Shortly before, I had my own little personal joy. Shortly after, that little joy was passed on to other people. It happened when the joy got the better of me. It might be a small joy, but it can also be a great joy. If it reaches a lot of people. And I found myself trying to invent another game. Possibly a better one. Because if I managed it once, I’m not quite sure how, perhaps I could do it again. But better. To try and bring joy to even more people. For others. I’ve been invited to the Cannes Festival again this year. On the Croisette. Just like Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. In the very same Palais des Festivals. Except that they’re invited to the Cannes Film Festival. Whereas I’m at the Cannes Games Festival. Which, in my opinion, is better. But I’m biased. Anyway. I’ve been invited to my French distributor’s stand. To play my games. I know it sounds strange to travel 400 km just to play my own games. But I always enjoy playing them. Thank goodness. Thank goodness I always enjoy playing them. Because I have to play them all day. All day Thursday. All day Friday. All day Saturday. And all day Sunday. So I thought that perhaps it isn’t true that I have to try and make good games for other people.

 

2026/05 - Not recommended

There are three types of game that are not recommended for publication. 1) Seasonal games, such as my Christmas game. 2) Games with a religious theme, such as my game set in a convent. 3) Games with a sports theme. The only one missing from my list was a sports-themed game. I decided to fill this gap. Because I think that in the world of board games, where thousands of new games are published every year, there is a risk of publishing too many games set, for example, in ancient Greece. I thought of a game about athletics. Like many of you, I get really into the Olympics every four years. Then, for the next four years, I ignore all sports. Apart from football. The last Olympics are long gone and the next ones are still a long way off. It’s the worst possible time, even from a marketing perspective. But I like the fact that the setting fits with the gameplay experience. And when I play, I feel like I’m ‘training’ when I draw cards, and ‘struggling’ when I discard them. So I thought of athletics. The decathlon, to be precise, because I have to plan my training around the different disciplines. King Gustav V described the winner of the first decathlon at the 1912 Olympics as “the greatest athlete in the world”. Tell me if a card game where players try to be “the greatest athlete in the world” isn’t appealing. But international distributors advised me against publishing a sports-themed game. What did I tell you? I tried to convince them by talking about the Olympic spirit. I quoted Gustav V. I mentioned in passing that the sports theme could still be tied in with ancient Greece. Silence. If the game is set in ancient Greece, then it’s fine. So. Please. If you mention it, leave out unnecessary details about athletics, the Olympics and the decathlon, and just say that the third game in the upcoming MINI CARD GAME trilogy will be a game about ancient Greece.

 

2026/04 - Things of Another World

 “Play is an action, or a voluntary activity, carried out within certain defined limits of time and space, according to a voluntarily accepted rule, and which nevertheless engages one completely, having an end in itself; accompanied by a sense of tension and joy, and by the awareness of ‘being different’ from ‘ordinary life’. It seemed to us that we could regard this category of ‘play’ as one of the most fundamental spiritual elements of life.”
Johan Huizinga, HOMO LUDENS, 1939

A few years ago, I visited a convent. As a visitor, not a resident. It was a deeply moving experience nonetheless. And it was even more moving to visit it as a game designer. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I thought: ‘Here, the rules of the game are different’. Now, read Huizinga’s quote again and tell me if the definition of play doesn’t also seem like the perfect description of a convent. The convent’s cloister is like a huge, life-size game board, complete with 3D pop-ups. Reading the sacred texts reminded me of hours spent reading the rules. Time stands still. It seems to never pass. Like waiting for your turn in a game after a serial thinker. And then silence. A sigh. A feeling of ideal peace that doesn’t exist in the library in my town where we’ve gathered to play, because our tables are close to the children’s play area. And that’s when I started thinking. In our world, the winner is the one who wins; I wanted a game where the loser wins. A game in which, instead of the arrogance of overtaking, the courtesy of letting others pass prevails. A race in which you try to finish last. A challenge of kindness. That is the premise. The result, however, is the least kind of all the games I have published. Never mind. The theme of the second of the next three games in the MINI CARD GAME series will be a convent. Amen.

 

2026/03 - The Beauty of Ugliness

As a child, I used to play board games; now I invent them. Do you know those heart-warming stories about people who’ve made their dreams come true? Rubbish. As a child, I loved VIDEO games. And being of a certain age, the video games of our time were what they were. Even the ugly ones. Let’s be honest. But no new, beautiful video game will ever replace the old, ugly ones in our hearts. Which we thought were beautiful. Which, to us, were beautiful. Just like our classmates. The most beautiful in the world. Because our world was our classroom. Not like today, when the world has become as big as the world itself. It’s not what’s beautiful that’s beautiful, but what you like that’s beautiful – that’s what we were taught as children. The beautiful ugliness of yesteryear taught us, however, that beautiful things are those that leave beautiful memories. That no one can take them away from you. Our times. When video games were played in company. In an arcade. Or at a friend’s house. Those were the real ‘party games’. Times when a friend was "quella cosa che più ce n'è, meglio è" (the sort of thing where the more, the merrier) an Italian hit from the 1980s. But those were different times, our times. Times when the whole of humanity was united. To defend our planet together. From invasions of pixels. The first of the next three new MINI CARD GAMES will be themed around old vintage video games. Vintage, just like me.

 

2026/02 - Flowers in winter

I spent a weekend in the middle of nowhere. Out in the countryside. Surrounded by nature. Right next to a motorway junction. One of the many places in the world in the middle of nowhere, but which, for convenience’s sake, I’ll call ‘Parma’. On a sort of spiritual retreat. Like a hermit. But with 664 other people. Who’d all had the same idea as me at the same time. To shut ourselves away in the middle of nowhere. Not just because it was winter. To test prototypes of board games. Prototypes. Games not yet finished. Which might not work. Even if that sounds a bit harsh. I did it to choose the
next three new games to be published in the MINI CARD GAME series. But everyone present had their own valid reasons for being there. To play. Day and night. In every room. Corridor. Hall. Although it’s a bit hard to believe that in ‘Parma’ there’s a ‘Hall’. Let’s call it a foyer. Here are the official figures: 368 designers, 170 playtesters, 25 press/bloggers, 22 publishers, 80 operators. No, I don’t know who the “operators” are. But they were there, according to the event’s official statement. 665 people who, for days and nights on end, stare at, grasp and move scraps of paper and pieces of cardboard as if they were sacred relics. With the same look of wonder as children gazing at their paper and cardboard creations. Thousands of prototypes, games, ideas. Games that are more or less beautiful. Mostly less. But which one day might become so. Beautiful. Fabulous. Like Andersen’s fairy tales. Not all of them have a happy ending. But in ‘Parma’, right next to a motorway junction, wonders can blossom. That is why Italian game designers head to “Parma” once a year with their prototypes. For the same reason people go to Lourdes. And in this wintery, fairy-tale setting, straight out of an Andersen story, we have chosen the next three games that will continue the MINI CARD GAME series.

 

2026/01 - The Difficulty of Getting Started

When the great Spanish cellist and conductor Pablo Casals turned 95, a young journalist asked him, “Mr Casals, you are 95 years old and the greatest cellist who ever lived. Why do you continue to practise for six hours a day?” Pablo Casals replied, “Because I think I’m making progress.”

They say the hardest part is getting started. But what about keeping going? To start with, you can kick things off with a masterpiece, but any old rubbish will do just fine. But to keep going, the rubbish has to be at least better than the last bit of rubbish. It’s not easy choosing the three new games that will continue the MINI CARD GAME series. It’s not easy trying to keep getting better and better. And the fact that GiocaGiullari have ranked one of our games in the TOP TEN of the best games released last year doesn’t exactly help to lower expectations. Sometimes I miss the carefree spirit of the early days. When something doesn’t exist yet, it’s always a potential masterpiece. One day, a classmate asked the teacher if anyone had got top marks in the test. ‘Yes,’ replied the teacher. She smiled happily. ‘Maybe it’s me,’ she said. In reality, she got a 2.5. But she was in a class where someone had got top marks, so, potentially, it could have been her. Choosing the first games to publish was that kind of joy. Two years and 10 games later, however, we worry more. Over 5,000 new board games are published every year, according to a random internet search. I don’t remember the source, so let’s just stick to ‘hearsay’. So it’s fair to ask whether the world of games needs yet another new game. And if we’ve already made games in our lives, whether we’re capable of doing ‘better’. But perhaps I’m worrying all this because I belong to a generation that grew up listening to songs like ‘Si può dare di più’ (We can do better).

Naivina, Switzerland.