Times of tumult call for tumultuous imaginations. There is a wonderful germ lurking in the 19th century romantic genre of “closet drama”. The term is usually applied to an unhinged dramatic production by some radical poet, so vast or unusual in concept, and so beyond the realm of possibility, as to be unstageable. Could this philosophy of reckless composition also be applied to games?
In practice the surrealist game is typically a simple proposition that is supposed to spin out in unseen directions, yielding marvelous results. Maybe the invention of impossible games might itself be conceived of as its own game. Is anything impossible? Numerous games have over the years pushed the very limits of play itself. In medieval Japan, certain monks conceived of notional versions of the game shogi that contained countless complicated and nigh-unplayable extrapolations of the original chess-like pieces (Fire Demons, Dragon Horses, Drunk Elephants)…
In the surrealist context, examples are many. Jean Benoit’s ritual testament of Sade gave us insight into the ever-threatening possibility of opening the closet and dragging whatever is inside, out. Likewise, the Stockholm surrealist group seem to have played many analytical games that at first sight were not games but only turned out to be so in retrospect. More recently, the Saqqara game from the Rio de plata surrealist group showed us the wonder latent in the pieces without fixed context. The supposed impossibility of play is itself only a relative challenge. There are no really impossible moves, and at a certain point in the game, there is always the possibility that a good gambit will change the rulebook retroactively and forever. If we can change the coordinates of the possible in terms of play, it may turn out that reality isn’t all that different…
With that in mind, we propose a wild theatricization of the game, using an unabashed romanticism applied with reckless abandon to pieces and boards and dice and, not the least of all, players themselves…
-JA
Have a closet game of your own? E-mail “peculiarmormyrid@hotmail.com” and we’ll add it to our collection below.
*
RASPBERRY TOPPINGS
Pieces:
100,000 raspberries
2000 gallons of raspberry sauce or more
Louis XV-style ladles and ice-cream scoops
The Berlin Philharmonic
Khan Tengri, the highest point in Kazakhstan
Opera glasses
A rapier
A slab of ice
Hector Berlioz
An elephant gun
Play:
The point of this game is to cover the mountain with raspberry toppings before the Berlin Philharmonic can finish a performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Players use the scoops and ladles to dole out raspberry sauce and toppings onto the surface of the mountain. Score is calculated by a combined factor of ingredients dispensed, the proportional ratio of those ingredients, and overall coverage of the mountaintop. Hector Berlioz, watching from a distance through a pair of opera glasses, will keep score on a nearby slab of ice using his rapier. Once the Eroica symphony finishes the Allegre molto, Berlioz will shoot the players down using the elephant gun in order of the highest score.
Trivia:
This game is said to symbolize the end of puberty for the multisexed nematode.
*
THE PROPRIETOR’S GAME
Pieces:
A vast estate
Mannequins representing domestics, tenants, family
A motorcar
A copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
A venomous snake
A literary critic
Rules:
One player is the proprietor and must arrange the mannequins at the request of the other players, each in turn. These are each assigned a character from Dracula. They must ask the proprietor to pose the mannequins in such a manner as would be conducive to the hidden desires of their character. Players may ask the proprietor to drive them and any number of mannequins to another part of the estate. At any given point the proprietor is allowed to release the venomous household snake, Euphues, but may only do so once per round. If a mannequin or player is bitten, they are removed from the game. The player whose scenario is received by the critic with the most pathos is the winner. If the living players are all bitten by the snake, the proprietor wins. If the critic is bitten, Ephues the snake is considered the winner, and everyone must go home.
*
THE CURTAIN LIFTED
Pieces:
The philosopher’s stone
A prion
A rare stuffed dodo
A full english breakfast
Dice
Rules: Players will take turns transmuting the calories in the full english to the stuffed dodo in the hopes of resurrection. The philosopher’s stone can be employed to direct the prion to transport calories to infect the dodo’s body. Once the dodo is resurrected, it can be competed for by the dice. The player with the highest roll is given the honour of taking it home and educating it on the finer points of modern society.
*
ANGRY GHOST CHESS
There exists a variety of chess, quite a bit like the game you remember, but every time a piece is captured, another board is begun, the same as the last but with the captured piece remaining and the one that took it removed. The game continues with the extra board until another piece is taken, and the process continues, the number of boards exploding into a game tree whose only ceiling is the factorial of every possible capture sequence. Once all boards have been played to their conclusion, players are awarded -1 for losses, 0 for draws, and 1 for victories, the one with the highest score prevailing. The game is named not for its mechanics, but those who play it. (L)