jducoeur

Okay, time for a little Laurel-geeking. My thanks to mikekn for pointing out that not only has Sonja Musser Golladay's long-awaited dissertation on "Los libros de acedrex dados e tablas" been published, but it's available for download from the University of Arizona! It's pretty big even by dissertation standards (over 1400 pages), but well worth getting your hands on -- this is without a doubt the most important book published on period games since Willughby's "Volume of Playes".

Golladay goes into loving detail about every aspect of the book and topic, and the result is that it's potentially interesting to many different readers. For example, baron_steffan might want to take a look at the ten pages discussing Hermeticism as an underlying precept of parts of the book; quantumkitty might enjoy poring through the full transcription of the text. Anyone who enjoys chess and wants to hone their period-chess skills is likely to appreciate the 100+ chess problems from the book, and anyone who enjoy fun and weird period games will *love* the stuff in here -- the majority of these games are still unknown to most of the SCA.

I'll admit a modest personal stake here: she spends several pages on my reconstruction of the Astrological Tables, and broadly finds it to not suck. (Which is a relief: it's always a bit disconcerting to have a knowledgeable scholar pore over my stuff.) But really: with this publication, all of the books that I had in my "long-awaited" pile have finally been published. (This, Willughby, and Smith's compilation of the Domenico corpus.) Clearly, I need to set my sights on something new to wait for now...

Thanks to Roland Piquepaille for this pointer to Elementeo, a rather intriguing new game. It's the work of a 14-year-old kid turned entrepreneur, and is a smart-looking attempt to mix education and fun. It's a card game, a la Magic, with your cards "battling" your opponent's, but the cards are all based on chemistry. Most cards represent elements, and have "powers" based on the actual elements (for example, Oxygen can rust Metal cards); there are also Compound cards like Carbon Dioxide, Alchemy cards that represent things like Fusion, and other complications.

Don't know how good it is as a game, but it's a clever idea -- it certainly seems plausible that one could make a fun game that teaches bits of the topic. Hopefully he'll succeed: at this point, I gather he's trying to drum up funding to produce and distribute it...

Just got a note from Gothic Green Oak, who were looking for a link exchange with the Period Games Homepage. Which I'll definitely do when I get around to doing an update (eventually), but they're worth spreading the word about sooner. Best period games merchant I've seen -- well, maybe ever. Nice-looking sets of lots of different period games. Not cheap (especially when you factor in the likely cost of shipping from England), but it's the first place I've ever seen selling what looks to be a properly-made Rhythmomachy set...

There -- games reconstructed, handout written. Okay, now I feel like I'm prepared for next weekend.

If you're going to be at GNE, and like games, I encourage you to come check out Some 13th Century Games Within the Tables (or whatever the name is I put on the program), which I'll be teaching there. I'll be covering five different games within the tables -- what we would call Backgammon variants today -- chosen as a representative sample of the kinds of variations found in the Alfonso MS. They're all distinctly in the same family (so they should be pretty easy and quick to learn), but each has some distinctive quirks.

I expect it to take 20-30 minutes to run through how to play the various games. After that, we'll pair off and try some of them out -- these are brand new reconstructions, and I haven't even played the games myself yet. If you have a backgammon set handy, bring it along to play with. (I'll have enough paper boards for everyone, but real backgammon sets are more fun to use.)

And if you aren't going to be at GNE, but will be at Pennsic, there will be another chance: I'll be teaching the same class there, in the Games Tent...