Cards at Sea ⛵️
Card experiments aboard Grayhound - a magnificent wooden lugger.
Ahoy from Grayhound - a magnificent wooden lugger which I have been crewing on for the last weeks.
Together, we've crossed plenty of miles, all the way from the Azores to Passaia, then heading up through the Bay of Biscay and English Channel to Gloucester, and then back South towards Douarnanez where we are now. You can read about my sailing adventures here, but for now I'd love to share with you a few card experiments I've been playing with while on board.
TLDR: it turns out that the sea is a fertile ground for cards! Perhaps you'll find some inspiration for how to use your Blanks?
The Dating Game 💞
When at sea, the sailing ship is your entire world, which also limits the available dating pool. But fear not! Cards come to the rescue to facilitate the matching process and ensure that you find the perfect date within your crew.
This is our experiment:
Every person who wants to play gets one blank card
Use it to make your dating profile. Make sure NOT to include any clearly identifying signs. Apart from that there are no rules.
When all profiles are completed we hang them in the public place along with one envelope for each card.
Every person gets to make one invitation and put it into any of the envelopes they want. Similar to dating profiles do NOT include any identifying signs.
When all invites are in, everyone picks their envelope and decides which (if any) of the invites they want to accept.
Of course at this point nobody knows who is who - you choose your date based on the vibe of the dating profile and the invitation.
The final step is to arrange the dates whenever there is a match. Hung the accepted invitations next to the dating profile and find the person who you're about to go on a date with.
We provided a cuddle puddle for the rejected people 😘
The result was delightful. We had an amazing mix of dating profiles (see above), a few funky dates, and a delicious cuddle puddle setting us for a restful night of sleep.
Pirate Tales 🏴☠️
During my art residency aboard Atyla back in 2023 I've developed the v1 of a storytelling card game about a pirate ship, and after a few sessions aboard Chateauroux I'm delighted to prototype it further aboard Grayhound.
It feels really good to be developing a storytelling sailing game on sailing ships.
The game starts with a two-stage foreplay - a pre-game creative space during which players co-create pieces which will then shape the narrative told together during the game. The mechanic of foreplay has been essential for many of my card sessions - just like in sex, taking time to connect with each other and gently stimulate creative juices to flow results in significantly improving the quality of the actual game. And I love the confused laughter that often comes up when I announce that it's time for foreplay 😅.
At the moment Pirate Tales is pretty much at the end of the prototyping cycle, with one last game design piece left to figure out. This means that it's time to look for an illustrator to partner up. If you'd like to explore that possibility I'd love to hear from you ✨.
I'm considering launching a mini-crowdfunding for the game when it's ready. If you'd like to support the project and get your deck from the first edition, I invite you to drop your contact in here, and I'll reach out when the campaign is ready.
Wild Cards 🔥
During my stay on Grayhound I also hosted numerous Card Sessions with my signature deck - the Wild Cards. Stepping into the Wizard shoes on board is definitely more challenging than on land and I struggled with two main factors - finding the right time and space.
While at sea, the whole life is dictated by the rhythm of the watch system and making space for cards is extremely hard. In fact I succeeded only once, and it resulted in the most amazing session of acroyoga while sailing. Totally worth it!
Being on anchor or moored in port feels definitely better, however lack of private spaces means that any session can be interrupted at any point by a variety of boat things such as a crew member passing by or an anchor alarm suddenly coming off.
With that in mind, allowing chaos to play along has always been a part of my Wizard Training, and it is always possible to be fully present event in the midst of randomness happening around.
Or you can play on land in a beautiful bay.
The biggest highlight was finally incorporating live music into a session - with the support of Grayhound's chef and multi-instrumentalist Isabel bringing her guitar, clarinet and maracas into the mix.
We took my dear friends Raissa and Christoff from Piratas do Amor into a hidden garden up the hills of Passaia and weaved the threads of life with cards and music guiding the session. The result was quite mindblowing, and I'm hoping to develop this kinds of collaborations with musicians and take Cards into galleries as an art performance. The next one, in collaboration with my dear musician friend Brian, will be held at Nowhere at Sheepy Ship camp. If you're around, I'd be delighted to see you there.
Gratitude Token, Carrrdified
Gratitude Token is a collaborative game designed to catalyse expressing gratitude within a community, prototyped at the Tradition Dream Factory with Bart Hoorweg back in 2022.
You can read more about the game here.
While aboard Grayhound I have minted another eight card tokens (pieces of eight, arrrr 🏴☠️🤍) and distributed them between people met onboard. There's still one left in my pocket, which is a great reminder to pass it on, and then mint some more!
Gratitude Tokens is one of my favourite community mini games - it's simple and beautiful. Here's a twitter thread where I document it's journey.
Grayhound's Pirate Name
This is a prototype of a gamified crew activation manual, providing a clear and actionable list of tasks to be handed out to new people onboard to get them into active participation and provide a sense of completion - your Pirate Name, awarded during a small ceremony upon completing all the challenges.
Naturally, being a part of a sailing ship means getting involved in a variety of tasks. However, depending on the captain and crew the quality of onboarding varies quite a bit. Stepping on a new sailing ship can be overwhelming. With hundreds of ropes to pull and everything constantly moving, it might not be clear what tasks are even there to engage with, and the amount of sailing vocabulary to learn doesn't make it easier.
After spending over a month on board and experiencing three different captains and different types of voyages, I begin to have a better idea of how to compile a small manual that would fit into contexts of different voyages, and provide a guideline for the new crew to get involved as well as create a physical artefact serving as a memory of their experience onboard.
This is still work in progress and while I have a few sketches in my journal I'm gonna keep them private for now 👀
Thank you for reading the card stories. You can also have a look into this twitter thread where I'm compiling my favourite cards as they show up.
Wishing you an amazing day!
Michał