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Bahraini creative Huda Aldaqqaq is turning heads and tables with her first-ever board game, in which players take on the roles of plants and are responsible for keeping humans hearty and healthy.
At the recent opening of the Majal exhibition at Al Riwaq Art Space, Huda showcased Ghaya, a competitive and collaborative board game in which a group of plants see human care as a comfortable retirement plan.
While working together to keep their humans alive, players also race against each other to be the first to achieve the status of ‘Protected Plants’ where humans take care of all their needs and in turn help them grow and reproduce.
“The idea for this game was born during a Majal class assignment where we were asked to delve deeper into something we consider special and I chose the tree outside my window that is as tall as the house,” the 27-year-old digital multimedia designer told GulfWeekly.
“My father—who loves his trees dearly—has been contemplating what to do with this enormous tree to get it out of the way, while all I could think about was how much I loved having it outside my window.
“This made me think about our relationship with plants, seeing them as mere objects, even though they’re fascinating, living creatures.
“Despite the fact that human history and habitats have always revolved around agricultural resources, and although trees hold a strong presence in Bahraini culture, sadly, our relationship with them is weakening, as we no longer coexist with them in the same spaces in most cases.”
In Ghaya, every player chooses a plant and starting from the outside edge of the hexagonal ‘field’, has to find a path to the centre of the board where they can be close to the human farmer.
During every turn, they can either move a step, provide a health point for the human or draw from a central pile for challenges, bonus actions or resources.
The shared goal is to keep the human alive until the plants retire, while each player’s individual objective is retire before the others.
The human has two key bars which are vital to their existence – health and food, and if these drop to zero, everyone loses the game. In addition, the human also has ‘shelter’ and ‘happiness’ points, which, if depleted, will affect the health and food bars.
The game, on average, takes three to six
players about 15 to 20 minutes to play.
“I play a lot of board games with my friends and family, but I haven’t had many attempts at creating them. It took a lot of time and research to figure out and combine the right mechanics,” Huda added.
The name of the game Ghaya means ‘ultimate purpose’ in Arabic, in reference to the unusual purpose of the plants in this game.
Incidentally, it also sounds similar to Gaia, a primordial goddess in Greek mythology whose name translates to ‘earth’.
Each component of the game has been carefully considered, from the Dilmun-inspired designs on the game pieces to the Islamic art-inspired geometric hexagonal shape of the game board.
“The steps were broken down into small diamonds as I drew inspiration from Bahraini design elements, often referred to as Hail (cardamom) or Loza (almond),” Huda noted.
Although the game is currently only available to be played at Al Riwaq while the Majal exhibition is on, Huda is considering making it commercially available, and already has some ideas for possible expansions.
For details, follow @ghaya.gg on Instagram.
