[028] Making Games Every Day for a Month, Day 16 of 31: A Secret Stitch

"The mill game, a pastime of ancient origin, was widely spread not only in European contexts but also in further areas. Despite this, it was known to have had a major development mostly in medieval Europe. Game boards engraved on stone or on other materials, pictorial representations, and mentions in written documentation testify the popularity achieved by the mill game over the centuries." - Lester Lonardo, Pastimes in the Life of a Castle: Archaeological Evidences of the Mill Game in Southern Italy

⭐⭐⭐

Tomorrow, me and my friend Anna Sharratt are teaching a group of kids how to make a small sewing kit .

We are going to decorate our sewing kits with some embroidery, and that's where today's game comes in.

You'll remember the game of Three Man's Morris from 14 days ago, of course. One of many games in the genre of Mill Games.

This game is etched into cathedral pews and scratched into floorboards all over Europe.

Though I'm not certain, I have a strong intuition that this game was embroidered at least once in history. It's such an easy pattern and would be such an easy game to play on a pincushion.

I feel that it is partly my mission to hide games in plain sight.

Hide play in common places.

I encourage you to do the same.

Thanks for sticking around for this short little project. I'll see you tomorrow.

⭐⭐⭐

"In conclusion, although nowadays the mill game is a niche hobby on the brink of oblivion, it can be considered one of the most practiced games between the Middle Ages and the Modern period [...] Its fortune and popularity were due not only to the easy rules and the simplicity in making pieces and crafting the game board, but also because it was a game of ingenuity that could often lead to gambling." - Lester Lonardo, Pastimes in the Life of a Castle: Archaeological Evidences of the Mill Game in Southern Italy