Let's Review a Game Manual
So I just read a sixty page game manual and it was a wonderful experience.
The Tak Companion Book is what you get when a brilliant author and a passionate game designer get together.
Tak is the Pinocchio of games. It is a game named purely for the fictions of a novel, but through much love and care has become a real boy.
Tak was used by Patrick Rothfuss in A Wise Man's Fear to bring life to his world and communicate the subtleties of his nobility. A Wise Man's Fear is worth a review and recommendation in it's own right, but today I want to talk a bit about Tak and its game manual instead.
Patrick Rothfuss wanted a game for his world that carried the same weight of history as we have in Chess and Go. Only creating a rough sketch of a game, he did this masterfully. While sketches can seem as real as can be with the weight of a reader's imagination behind it, sketches don't amount to much in our tangible reality.
That is where James Ernest of Crab Fragment Labs (and Cheapass Games) comes in. He's a designer who has made well over a hundred games. He liked Patrick's description of Tak and wanted to make it into a real game. After some convincing, Patrick let him do just that and it resulted in this wonderful Tak Companion Book!
The game itself, however... I haven't played.
It looks and sounds amazing, but I haven't had a chance to play it yet. The official version isn't something you can find on Amazon (fine by me) and there's a bit of a DIY spirit to the game. I'm going the DIY route as it feels like the kind of game designed to be homemade. Finding time to be crafty has proven difficult, and it's not something I do often so I've repeatedly needed to pause my efforts in order to acquire more supplies that I didn't know I'd need.
But, it's been fun and hopefully I'll actually play (and review) the game soon!
As for the Tak Companion Book, it is a game manual that contains not only the rules of the game, but the fictitious history of the game and culture around it. It's a board game that comes with lore.
Now, as I write that I realize that that is not something all that new. I'm aware that Warhammer exists. But. It's new to me. And I love it.
It has puzzles and rules for two other games that are a part of the made up history of Tak. While there are plenty of games that have their own lore I'm not sure there are many that start out as purely fiction and find their way to reality.
And. It's free. The physical edition isn't. Pieces to play the game aren't. But the Tak Companion Book is. It's a free PDF that you can just download and read.
So, when I thought I was nearly done with my DIY set, I did read it. And I loved it. And I recommend you read it too. Especially if you love Patrick Rothfuss's work. Especially if you love board game lore. But also just to say you read a 60 page board game manual for the fun of it.
You are Love.
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