The Yama's Law
Challange Yama! Live in an animal body
and fight to reach the illumination.
The Yama's Law is a board game inspired by the chinese proverb "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly."
We interpreted the proverb as a way to say that changes, even if can look unpleasant or scary, are often positive and so it's better to learn to adapt to them rather than fight.
We wanted the player to feel the experience of adaptation to forced changes.
We used the metaphor of reincarnation. The player is a spirit that must lose some negative Karma collected in his past lives.
To lose negative Karma and reach the enlightenment he has to live in animals body following the Yama's Law.
We used the metaphor of reincarnation. The player is a spirit that must lose some negative Karma collected in his past lives.
To lose negative Karma and reach the enlightenment he has to live in animals body following the Yama's Law.
Yama is the buddhist personification of death: in our game the scary change is the death and the player must accept that his animal incarnation can die, forcing him to born again in an other animal body.
All the animals belongs each to seven elements (fire, water, air, earth, vibration, ether and light) and can change their state, they can be aggressive or peaceful.
Water animals: Walrus, Octopus, Crab and Carp.
Air animals: Barn Owl, Mouflon, Hummingbird and Ermine
Earth animals: Warthog, The Komodo Dragon, Ostrich and Alpaca
Vibration animals: Mole, Bat, Cobra and Cat.
Ether animals: Vulture, Elephant, Macaque and Turtle
Light animals: Lion, Lemur, Swan and Fennec
Fire animals: Fox, Moray, Salamander and Tiger
All the animals begins their travel from the Yama's mouth, in the center of the board. All the animals are aggressive at the birth.
To reach illumination the player must pick up the element of his animal incarnation, placed on the edges of the board.
Picking up the element is not that simple, in fact the player must reach the Element in a peaceful state.
In order to turn his state from aggressive to peaceful, the player must attack and kill another player. If a peaceful player is attacked and survives, he becomes aggressive again.
The fights are ruled by some cards that goes from value 2 to value 4.
At the begin all the players have the same cards, so that during the fights they have to choose wich cards use before and wich after. All the animals have statistics (strength, endurance and speed) that must be add to the card value. The animals statistics are dynamic, thay are changed by cards and change during the time (the longer an animal lives, the more powerfull it becomes).
At the begin all the players have the same cards, so that during the fights they have to choose wich cards use before and wich after. All the animals have statistics (strength, endurance and speed) that must be add to the card value. The animals statistics are dynamic, thay are changed by cards and change during the time (the longer an animal lives, the more powerfull it becomes).
The negative Karma is represented by a necklace. The game ends when a player collects three elements, the player who win is the one who has moved more beads in his necklace.
AUTHORS:
Sara De Donno
Sara De Donno
Irene Nappi
Laura Pesenti
Zeno Pillan
Laura Pesenti
Zeno Pillan
Ilaria Vitali
