For the „Green Box of Games“ there are now over 100 different games – some adaptations of famous games, most of the orginal games for the box. The Green Box of Games is a board game concept with generic components permitting an infinite (?) number of different games to be played with. To further exploit the possibilities of the box Jørgen Brunborg-Næss, the Norvegian inventor of the box, organizes on a regular basis game design contests.

This year’s contest was about to create a solo game for the box. I am very happy that the jury and also many players enjoyed my entry „36 to 1„, so it made the first place in the contest. 36 to 1 is a very simple puzzle game, one could say maybe a modern variante of the traditional „solitaire“.In the announcement of the results of the contest, Jørgen wrote:

„this design is confirmation that very often „less is more“. The game is quick to set up and quick to complete, and you will keep trying until you are able to solve it“

As designer I like the Green Box very much, as it offers an interesting playground to start designing from the components rather than from a theme or mechanism. As all the games are under Creative-Commons-License (CC BY SA) the box is also a great tool for educational purposes (OER).

By now I have contributed three more games to the box: the „Box of Chocolates„, the Viking Chess adaptation „TaKu“, which won the last year’s SAZ contest and a game called „Ninja Drone Race“ which is particularly dear to my heart as the idea for the game came from our by then 5 year old son with whom it was a great father son experience to develop a game together 🙂