The Game
Calligraphy is a tile-placement game where players are medieval scribes vying to craft the most impressive scroll and become the Royal Calligrapher. A family-weight game, it plays 2-5 people in less than an hour. There is little down time because all turns are simultaneous – the active player chooses an action and performs it with a bonus, and the other players perform the basic action. Players must solicit the supplies they need to make their scroll, plan the elements that will go into it, and then craft their masterwork – but they must also abide by artistic convention in the placement of their tiles, or risk marring it with mishaps. After the scrolls are completed and bonuses assigned, the player with the highest score wins! You can follow @CalligraphyGame on Twitter and on Instagram.
The Designer
An old-school nerd (analog > digital), Eric J. Francis got seriously into board game design in 2016 when he joined the Game Makers Guild in Boston. He got started playing board games the usual way, as a kid with his family and games like Parcheesi, Sorry, Monopoly and, as a teen, Risk, Nuclear War, and Axis & Allies. His gaming horizons were broadened in 1990 when he was introduced to Cosmic Encounter, and he gradually delved deeper into the hobby. These days he has a penchant for worker placement, resource management, card drafting, and tile placement. A career writer and editor, he currently works as a freelance content creator in the Boston area.
How To Play Video