{"id":12304,"date":"2023-12-03T17:50:16","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T17:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/?p=12304"},"modified":"2023-12-03T18:53:33","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T18:53:33","slug":"santas-little-elves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/blog\/2023\/12\/03\/santas-little-elves\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa\u2019s Little Elves"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ceux qui suivent mon actualit\u00e9 ludique savent que ce jeu a eu une histoire compliqu\u00e9e. Faisant \u00e0 priori confiance tout le monde, je ne fais pas d’enqu\u00eate approfondie sur les \u00e9diteurs qui me proposent de publier l’un de mes jeux. Dans l’immense majorit\u00e9 des cas, tout se passe bien. Tr\u00e8s rarement, comme cela a \u00e9t\u00e9 le cas avec The Gaming Goat, l’\u00e9diteur initial de Santa’s Little Elves, les choses tournent au vinaigre. Je n’\u00e9tais visiblement pas le seul avec qui leurs relations \u00e9taient difficiles, puisque l’\u00e9quipe de The Gaming Goat a finalement jet\u00e9 l’\u00e9ponge et quitt\u00e9 le monde ludique.
Les boutiques, la maison d’\u00e9dition, et le stock de Santa’s Little Elves qui venait d’\u00eatre imprim\u00e9 (je n’\u00e9tais m\u00eame pas au courant), ont \u00e9t\u00e9 repris par Hassan Sheikh et Morhan Fleur de Lys (quel nom!), qui ont tout l’air d’\u00eatre des gens tr\u00e8s bien. Leur nouvelle boite, baptis\u00e9e Knight and Day games, se concentre pour l’instant sur les boutiques qu’ils ont aux \u00c9tats-Unis, mais ils envisagent peut-\u00eatre un jour de se lancer dans l’\u00e9dition. En attendant, ils ont quelques milliers de boites de Santa’s Little Elves sur les bras, et quels que soient les reproches que je peux faire \u00e0 TGG Games, je dois reconna\u00eetre qu’il a \u00e9t\u00e9 bien \u00e9dit\u00e9. Knightn and Day games n’est pour l’instant pas en mesure d’exp\u00e9dier le jeu hors des \u00c9tats-Unis, mais cela viendra sans doute bient\u00f4t. Il est en outre probable que Matagot en publie un jour une version fran\u00e7aise – surtout si on arrive \u00e0 retrouver les fichiers graphiques, qui semblent avoir disparu. Arnaud Charpentier, de Matagot, s’est en effet beaucoup investi pour sauver ce qui pouvait l’\u00eatre dans le naufrage de la ch\u00e8vre ludique, et a r\u00e9cup\u00e9r\u00e9 certains contrats des jeux qui n’avaient pas encore \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9dit\u00e9s.
Bref, surtout si vous \u00eates aux \u00c9tats-Unis, et si vous cherchez un petit jeu de bluff simple, amusant et sans pr\u00e9tention, vous n’avez plus de raison d’\u00e9viter les petits elfes que vous trouverez non pas dans la boutique du P\u00e8re No\u00ebl mais dans celle de Hassan et Morgan, ici.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dans Santa\u2019s Little Elves, vous \u00eates l\u2019un des lutins v\u00eatus d\u2019un ridicule uniforme vert et rouge qui, dans l\u2019atelier du P\u00e8re No\u00ebl, fabriquent et emballent \u00e0 la chaine les jouets destin\u00e9s aux enfants du monde entier – enfin, surtout des pays o\u00f9 les parents ont assez d\u2019argent pour acheter des jouets, car le P\u00e8re No\u00ebl ne perd pas le Nord. Ce dernier est en effet un capitaliste de la pire esp\u00e8ce, qui vous exploite de mani\u00e8re \u00e9hont\u00e9, profitant de la raret\u00e9 des offres de travail dans le grand nord.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Une partie des Lutins du P\u00e8re No\u00ebl au kiosque \u00e0 jeux de la Place de la R\u00e9publique.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Le travail est \u00e9reintant et les salaires ridiculement bas. Les heures suppl\u00e9mentaires ne sont g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement pas d\u00e9clar\u00e9es, les possibilit\u00e9s de promotion sont inexistantes ou illusoires. L\u2019usine est glaciale ; vous n\u2019avez aucune id\u00e9e de la date \u00e0 laquelle le chauffage sera r\u00e9par\u00e9, mais certainement pas avant la fin de la campagne d\u2019hiver. Les situations de harc\u00e8lement sont \u00e9galement r\u00e9currentes. Seule consolation, ce n\u2019est pas vraiment mieux pour vos camarades qui travaillent au tri des lettres, ni sans doute pour ceux du centre d\u2019appel r\u00e9cemment d\u00e9localis\u00e9 en Antarctique. Sans m\u00eame parler de ces pauvres rennes, enferm\u00e9s tout l\u2019\u00e9t\u00e9 dans un hangar sordide avant d\u2019\u00eatre contraints, tout l\u2019hiver, de galoper dans la neige avec un costume et des cloches ridicules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solidarit\u00e9 et conscience de classe n\u2019\u00e9tant pas vraiment le point fort des lutins, il serait vain d\u2019esp\u00e9rer pouvoir organiser une gr\u00e8ve. Du coup, vous avez d\u00e9cid\u00e9 de prendre votre destin en main, en volant des jouets sur la cabine pour les revendre sur ebay, tomb\u00e9 du tra\u00eeneau. Bien s\u00fbr, vos petits cons de coll\u00e8gues font la m\u00eame chose, et chacun espionne ses voisins, esp\u00e9rant les prendre sur le fait pour les faire chanter ou les d\u00e9noncer au patron.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dans cette ambiance de r\u00eave, le vainqueur sera bien s\u00fbr le plus riche \u00e0 la fin de la partie, qui pourra quitter l\u2019usine et se payer une croisi\u00e8re de r\u00eave dans les Cara\u00efbes. Les autres devront se contenter de quelques bi\u00e8res \u00e0 la taverne du coin, et tant pis si le tavernier est un pote du patron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceux qui connaissent bien mes jeux ne seront gu\u00e8re surpris par ces Petits lutins du P\u00e8re No\u00ebl, un jeu de cartes simple et rapide, tout entier construit sur le bluff et la psychologie, dans la m\u00eame famille que Dolor\u00e8s, Waka Tanka ou Venture Angels. Con\u00e7u il y a plusieurs ann\u00e9es de cela, ce jeu de cartes est rest\u00e9 dans mes cartons assez longtemps. Plusieurs \u00e9diteurs s\u2019y sont int\u00e9ress\u00e9s, mais ils voulaient soit changer un th\u00e8me auquel je tenais parce que je le trouvais dr\u00f4le et politique, soit rendre plus complexe un jeu dont le charme r\u00e9side en partie dans sa simplicit\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Le seul changement que je regrette un peu concerne la liste des jouets. Dans mon prototype, les jouets du p\u00e8re No\u00ebl \u00e9tait extr\u00eamement typ\u00e9s, genr\u00e9s comme on dit aujourd\u2019hui, des poup\u00e9es et des cuisines roses pour les filles, des voitures et des jeux de construction pour les gar\u00e7ons. Cela g\u00eanait d\u2019autant plus les lutins qu\u2019ils ne sont eux-m\u00eames pas tr\u00e8s clairs sur les questions de genre. Craignant que certains joueurs ne prennent cela au premier degr\u00e9, l\u2019\u00e9diteur a remplac\u00e9 cela par une distinction entre jouets technologiques (avec la technologie des ann\u00e9es quatre-vingt-dix parce que c\u2019est plus rigolo) et jouets traditionnels. Je sais bien qu’il est toujours plus prudent de prendre les joueurs pour des imb\u00e9ciles, il y en a toujours quelques-uns dans le lot, mais c’est dommage quand on leur enl\u00e8ve une occasion \u00e0 la fois de rire et de r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir. Enfin, c\u2019est un peu moins dr\u00f4le, mais cela devrait marcher aussi bien. Dans un jeu aux m\u00e9canismes finalement tr\u00e8s simples, cela passera peut-\u00eatre mieux aupr\u00e8s des plus jeunes joueurs qui n\u2019ont pas connu l\u2019\u00e9poque des jouets hyper-genr\u00e9s, des poup\u00e9es Barbie et des maquettes d\u2019avion. Pour le reste, toute ma petite histoire de lutins pr\u00e9-marxistes, classe en soi mais pas pour soi, est bien l\u00e0, et c\u2019est l\u2019essentiel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Les r\u00e8gles tr\u00e8s simples de Santa\u2019s Little Elves mettent certes le jeu \u00e0 la port\u00e9e de tous, mais son th\u00e8me ne doit pas faire croire qu\u2019il n\u2019est destin\u00e9 qu\u2019aux enfants. C\u2019est aussi un jeu de bluff bien fourbe qui devrait plaire aux habitu\u00e9s de mes petits jeux de cartes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santa\u2019s Little Elves<\/strong>
Un jeu de Bruno Faidutti
Illustr\u00e9 par\u00a0Marlies Barends
3 \u00e0 5 joueurs \u2013 20 minutes
Publi\u00e9 par Matagot \/ TGG \/ Knight and Day games (2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you follow this blog, you know that this game has had a complex story. I trust people by default, and don’t systematically check the business past of people who want to publish my games. In nearly every case, everything goes well. Very rarely, like things turn sour. That’s what happened with The Gaming Goat, the original publisher of Santa’s Little Elves. I was not the only one with whom their relations were difficult, since the Gaming Goat finally gave up publishing and selling games and quit the the boaredgame business.
The company assets, meaning the shops, the IPs, and the stock of santa’s Little Elves which had just been printed, have been taken over by Hassan Sheikh and Morgan Fleur de Lys (what a name !), which seem to be really nice people. Their new company is called Knight and Day games. So far, they mostly focus on the game shops, but they might later become a publisher. In the meantime, they have a few thousand copies of Sant’s Little Elves which, no matter the many issues I had with TGG games, has been well illustrated and produced. Knight and Day doesn’t yet shop outside of the US, but I hope the soon will. It is also likely that Matagot will some day publishe a French version – especially if we can track the graphic files, which seem to have vanished. Arnaud Charpentier, of Matagot, took great pain in salavging what could be salvaged from the Gaming Goat shipwreck, including some of contracts for games which had not yet been produced.
This means that, if you are in the US and are looking for a light, simple and family friendly bluffing game, there’s no more reason to avoid my Little Elves. You can buy them not in santa’s shop but in Hassan & Morgan’s one, here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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You\u2019re one of Santa Claus Elves, in a ridiculous red and green uniform, working on the factory line all year long, manufacturing toys for kids from the whole world, or at least from the countries where parents are rich enough to buy kids toys. Stupid rich kids who never heard of you, and who probably would not care if the had. Santa Claus, a capitalist of the worse kind, is clearly exploiting you, taking advantage of the scarcity of jobs in the far North. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Playtesting Santa’s Little Elves at the Ludopathic Gathering.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Exhausting work, bad pay, no pay at all for overtime, no consideration, no summer holidays, no career prospects. The factory is ice cold, and you have no idea when the heating will be fixed, but certainly not before the end of this winter season. Harassment issues are commonplace. It\u2019s probably not better for your comrades sorting letters, and certainly even worse for those at the after-sales hotline, recently outsourced to Antarctica.And there are serious work harassment problem. Worst of all, the factory is terribly cold and you\u2019ve no idea when the heating will be fixed. And better not talk about these poor reindeers, spending the whole summer in a dirty shed and running all around the world in the cold winter with ridiculous bells.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solidarity and class consciousness are not elves\u2019 strong suit, so you\u2019ve decided to help yourself. On every occasion, you steal small toys from the line, and try to sell them on eBay as fallen of the back of the sledge. Of course, your nasty colleagues are all doing the same. They\u2019re also spying on you, and will report you when caught, unless you give them what you have stolen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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The elf with the most cash at the end of the game is the winner, resigns from the job and goes for a two-month cruise in the Caribbean. The other elves have still enough cash for a few beers at the local tavern \u2013 and, yes, this means the money goes back to Santa Claus, who also owns the tavern, but that\u2019s life.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who know my card games won\u2019t be surprised by Santa Claus\u2019 Elves. It is a simple and fast paced bluffing card game, entirely built on bluffing and psychology, a bit like my Dolores, Waka Tanka or Venture Angels. I have designed it a few years ago, but it has stayed unpublished because I was waiting for a publisher willing to keep both the simplicity of the core mechanism and the fun storyline, and many wanted to make the game more complex, or to go for a less political setting. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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There\u2019s one change I regret a bit, with the list of toys. My prototype had two categories of terribly gendered toys, dolls and pink plastic kitchens for girls, cars and construction sets for boys. This was one more problem for the elves, most of which are not clearly settled on gender issues. The publisher was afraid some gamers would take this at face value, even when the rest of the game is obviously parodic. The publisher replaced this with two other categories, traditional and modern toys – modern meaning from the nineties, because it looks nicer. I know it’s always safer to treat gamers as fools, there must be a few ones in the crowd, but it also means removing opportunities to both laugh and think. It’s not as fun, but it works as well and will probably make more sense with younger gamers who didn\u2019t know the time of Barbie dolls and airplane models. And anyway, all the rest of my little proto-marxist elves story, class in itself but not for itself, is still there, and that\u2019s what matters. <\/em>

Santa\u2019s Little Elves has short and simple rules, and can be played by kids, but you must not be fooled by its topic and title – it\u2019s not just for kids. Played with the right crowd, it can also become a nasty bluffing game, like many of the small card games I have designed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santa\u2019s Little Elves<\/strong>
A game by Bruno Faidutti
Art by par\u00a0Marlies Barends
3 to 5 players \u2013 20 minutes
Published by Matagot \/ TGG \/ Knight and Day games (2023)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ceux qui suivent mon actualit\u00e9 ludique savent que ce jeu a eu une histoire compliqu\u00e9e. Faisant \u00e0 priori confiance tout le monde, je ne fais pas d’enqu\u00eate approfondie sur les \u00e9diteurs qui me proposent de publier l’un de mes jeux. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[501],"tags":[315,503,297,492],"class_list":["post-12304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-santas-little-elves","tag-bluff-bluffing","tag-marlies-barends","tag-matagot","tag-santas-little-elves"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/E88470C6-32EE-4327-9973-6BDA5D9D5FD6.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2HNOP-3cs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12304"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16110,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12304\/revisions\/16110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}