Wisdom

Mission 1

Welcome To

The Imagitorium

Where you run the world.

You have been appointed Director of the Imagitorium.

There is a reason the job went to you. Most people inventing things are working with twenty years of material. You have eighty. Every room you have walked into, every person you have read in three seconds, every time you knew how it would go before it went — all of that is in here with you, and none of it can be taught.

Being wise is not a consolation prize.

We are ushering in the Golden Age, where we listen to your ideas.

Before You Begin

This first one is to find your rhythm. Take the month, take two, take it at whatever pace suits you — you have earned the right not to be hurried by anybody.

Find your Creative Zone. It should feel comfortable, somewhere you can relax, let your mind wander, and feel inspired. A quiet corner, a favourite chair, the garden. Some people have two, one inside and one out. There is no right or wrong — it is whatever works for you.

A notebook, and keep one by the bed
Pencils, pens, whatever you like the feel of
Something small to carry with you

The best ideas arrive when you are not doing anything. Have the notebook ready — you will be surprised how many come when you least expect them.

And in week one, daydreaming is the work.

Each month you have the chance to let your imagination go entirely where it wants. Every mission is built to spark something new. Nobody knows where yours will go.

There are four weeks to it. Daydream, then Decide, then Design, then Create — and a reflection at the end that belongs to you and nobody else.

You are not learning this. You had it before anybody taught you to sit still, and you are simply taking it back off them.

There Is No Age Limit On Brilliance

Nobody marks this. You are decades past needing anyone’s approval, which is exactly why it works better on you than on almost anyone.

Mission 1

Design A Board Game

Your commission

Design A Board Game

Three people you have never heard of, and what they started.

Elizabeth Magie · 1904

She patented a board game thirty years before Monopoly existed, to show people what landlords do. A man later took it to Parker Brothers, who paid her $500 and printed his name on the box. It went on to be played in more than a hundred countries. She went to the newspapers and told them exactly whose game it was.

Alfred Butts · 1938

An architect with no work, in the Depression, counting how often each letter appears on the front page of the New York Times. Around 150 million sets, 121 countries, more than 30 languages. A third of American homes and half of British homes have one in a cupboard right now.

Eleanor Abbott · 1948

A retired schoolteacher, recovering from polio in a San Diego ward, surrounded by children with the same disease — some of them in iron lungs. She drew a game on a roll of butcher paper so they had something to look forward to. A coloured path, a card, move to that colour: no numbers and no reading, so a four-year-old could beat an adult. She called it Candy Land. More than 50 million copies, and about a million more every year since.

Big in America, barely known here — which is rather the point. She was not trying to make a famous thing. She was trying to give some sick children something to look forward to.

Now yours.

What’s missing? What could a game do for people?

Who is it for? Yourself, the people you know, somebody you will never meet.
Is it for the fun of it — or is it something somebody could learn?
Does it need a board, or a room, or the same country, or even a table?
What would you want it to do to the people playing it?

Go as far out as you like — further than that, in fact. The strangest idea is almost always the one with something alive in it, and you are the person in the room with enough behind you to tell the difference.

Begin Week One