ps161104 Rembrandts Ghost as Euro game  

I went into the hospital recently for back surgery, and, as so often happens to me, I was lucky to meet someone who gave me a clue in solving the puzzle of Rembrandts Ghost-the game. You may know I designed the WeeWoodie Rembrandt Press, intending this toy press to be a component in a series of games both physical and digital.

Now I know a lot of people reading this might think that going to the hospital for back surgery is not a matter of being lucky, however I do live my life as if it were a game and that every event, no matter how trivial or gloomy, is like a card dealt to me.

For example, consider what were the chances that one of the therapists on duty would be a printmaker like me?

“Oh, yes, I know printmaking,” she said—when I mentioned it’s what I do for my occupation. “My mother and father are both in the arts, as teachers, and I’ve been making prints ever since I was a little girl!”

Her name was Jessica, an occupational therapist. Having established something we had in common, and with little time to make small talk, I went further.

“I actually make miniature etching presses.”

“Oh, cool!”

I pressed on: “But, to tell you the truth, I like to think of printmaking as a kind of game, so I’m now thinking about a global network of printmakers, a kind of game, based on geography and the times they have a printmaking experience—the moment of making a print.”

Jessica was the “lucky card” in my game because when suggested that I like to think of making a printmaking game as “a work of art” she said, “Then I think you would like European-style board games.” Lucky for me, because I had never heard of European-style, or Euro Games. She explained that they are more cerebral, deeper, than run-of-the-mill board games like Monopoly or Scrabble.

After I left the hospital I began researching Euro Games, seeking a way to link together my press designs with the online network I call Proximates—a social network for printmakers in which space and time of a printmaking moment constitutes a value to share worldwide.

Pretty soon I found an article by Keith Burgun titled, “Why Eurogames are Inherently Single Player Games.” I hit pay dirt because he referred to these games as “machine-like.” My novel, “Rembrandt’s Ghost in the New Machine” came to mind as I read his words:

“. . . the core, central idea of Euros is ‘building a machine’. You take elements from the middle, buy them with resources, and add them to your machine which makes it bigger and more productive. It produces more resources, and the loop continues. This machine-building thing is really what they’re all about.”

My life game I call “Emeralda” is about fitting things together to form as perfect a life as possible, so Keith’s remarks about Euro games being akin to machine-building is one of those parts.

Making an etching press is a matter of fitting parts together to make a working machine. Making it beautiful is another aspect which is ignored by printmaking press manufacturers.

Making beautiful instruments to make beautiful art is the domain of musical-instrument makers—not printing press makers. I believe artists work best when their tools—their instruments—are in proportion to their tasks. Proportion means shape, choice of materials, performance and other things that are part of the artist, crafts person and designer’s domain.

It must be true of game design, too, and Keith expressed it. Secondly, he suggests that game play can be single-player with advantages, but people might think it a little weird—like playing Solitaire or filling in crossword puzzles is to me. If you’re a printmaker, you might relate to this comment by Keith:

“. . . the concept of taking out a board game, laying out all the pieces and playing it by yourself is very strange to most people. I’ve done this myself and it’s fun, but it’s kind of a weird feeling.”

Paraphrasing Keith, I say that buying a Halfwood Etching Press for thousands of dollars from me, adding another few hundreds in import duties, shipping and art supplies and then making prints by yourself—for yourself and maybe a close circle of friends or a club—is the same kind of weird.

And what about the social value of printmaking? I believe that printmaking is a social art—and it’s an art of historical and political value, not to mention it’s the ancestor of all technologies as we know them. Maybe hand printmaking has been diminished to self-indulgent play or therapeutic pastime, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

As such, printmaking is like playing games. Confucius said it’s better to play games than do nothing at all. Jane MacGonigal said playing games can save your life, and fix reality!

Even when I was in my ‘thirties I wondered what I would do as an old man. I traveled the world meeting old printmakers to see what the future might hold for me when I reached my ‘70s (which I have!). It looks to me as though all that is left for an old man is to lay out all the pieces of my game and play it by myself.

On the other hand, as printmaking evolved to become MMORPGs through a history of technologies—millions of pieces of a virtual machine of which a few—when fitted together—could make a single-player game I call “Proximates.”

In his article, Keith added another component—bots—because single player games lack interaction by other players. If there must be other players, Keith Burgun said, then let them be bots:

“. . . because ‘other players’ don’t add anything to the [game play] experience. If there must be bots, I want them to be as predictable as possible so that I can factor their actions into my machine-building. If there must be other players, use bots, and make them as predictable as possible.”

If there are to be bots in my game design, they would be famous artists who made historic prints—everything from bird art (James Audubon) to anti-war images (Goya). Rembrandt’s (Ghost) is my initial entry. I considered Goya and Salvador Dali to include in my pantheon of ghosts in the printmaking machines. They made printmaking history, their actions in game play are predictable, not to mention the educational value of playing with these ghosts.

I hope Jessica gets in touch with me—I would love to share Keith Burgun’s article with her and discuss how occupational therapy might involve printmaking and Euro Games.