In 2022, I tried out a game from that year’s Nine-Card-Design Contest, Ceramicus. It is, for all intents and purposes, a nine-card Dobble/Spot It deck. I made a mental note that it might make a decent travel game and I probably got rid of my copy when I purged my collection for a big move.
But… the game lingered in the back of my head.
Ceramicus is not a game you’d pull out when you’re actually planning on playing a game. I mean, there’s a ton of Spot It decks out there and if you wanted a speed pattern recognition game for a game night, just use Spot It. And it’s not a game like Scott Almes’ Simply Solo series that I’d play for a solitaire break.
However, there are times when I want a game for fidgeting. Waiting in the car, waiting for coffee, times like that. And Ceramicus works well for that. I can play it solitaire in-hand, which adds some versatility. In-hand play is really handy for the whole sitting-in-the-car play.
I particularly like that it has a low-ink option, making for a minimal cost option that I don’t care if it gets damaged. I wouldn’t feel so casual grabbing and carrying around nine random Spot It cards.
Ultimately, Ceramicus is a very clean implementation of an idea that requires some decent number crunching.
It has to say something that I have developed a collection of games that I can use for fidgeting. I’ve been using Down from 2016 this way for years and Labyrinth Runner and Starspeaker from Onthewayover have been really good experiences.
While Ceramicus doesn’t do anything new, it packages what it does do in a very convenient way. And, unlike many fidget games, it can be expanded into a multi-player game without any problem.
At first, Ceramicus seems like a trifle. However, since making a new deck, it keeps on seeing play. It definitely has a use and a place.
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