Decalynx is played by two players or groups, on a board with ten positions and twenty-two connecting paths. Its design is in fact based on the Sephirotic Tree of Jewish Mysticism.
Each player must in turn place an 'item' in one of the ten spaces and claim 'links'. An 'item' may be anything: a melody, make of car, theorem, quote, football hero, bird, photo, economic statistic. After placing an item a player scores by claiming a viable link (a leap of thought, the sense of which is either apparent, imaginable or otherwise acceptable to the other player or a referee) between the item in question and another item already in play along one of the board's 22 connecting paths. The first two moves don't score so it's not necessary for them to be connected spaces or to look for links.
The game may be played by modem on computer, or by mail or as a party game; it may also be seen as an art form or as a form of therapy, like 'sand play'. Indeed the aesthetics of the game, Cameron argues, may be more important to some players than the winning.
To get some idea of the way a game might progress here are just the first four items placed in one sample game: (1) Memphis Slim, (2) Delta of Venus an Anais Nin collection), (3) Minnesota Fats (a pool player) - claiming links for (i) Minnesota and Memphis, two American place names, (ii) both starting with M, (iii) each of which has a public figure named after it, (iv) whose second name has to do with girth: Slim and Fats. The next item placed was (4) Fats Domino. The player claimed links to the names Slim and Fats and to Memphis Slim and Fats Domino as they were both black musicians. He also claimed points for linking two quasi-erotic novels, Anais Nin's Delta of Venus and Colin Wilson's book The God of the Labyrinth, in which the leader of the erotic cult known as the Sect of the Phoenix is called Domino.
Charles Cameron, 1225 Linda Rosa Ave, Los Angeles CA 90041; tel 213 259 8626.
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