SAVE THE THREATENED MUSHROOM










Save the Threatened Mushroom is a mind game played by two players. This is its gigantic version that was displayed in the exhibition THE END held in Dom HDLU (the Home of the Croatian Association of Artists), i.e. the so-called Džamija. The exhibition included some 600 drawings and graphics of critically endangered animal and plant species, which were also used to create the animated film Stabat Mater (music was composed by Bero Puhlovski, a radio jazz drummer), which will soon be published on this blog.

GAME RULES: The game starts on the empty board, while the players alternately set 34 figures on the black round fields in such a way that the next move has to be made on the field next to the previously placed mushroom, or if that is not possible, the figure should be placed on the nearest available field. When all the figures have been placed, the game continues. Any figure can be moved for one field or by jumping over one or more figures onto the free field (as in the game of checkers). The same figure cannot be moved twice, i.e. one full round since the previous move. The aim of the game is to win a square, thus saving a threatened mushroom species, i.e. to score a point. Each square can be conquered four times, and at each scoring the player puts a chip on the conquered field. The square is being won by putting the same four kinds of mushrooms (either poisonous red ones or edible white ones). A yellow mushroom is a joker and worths the same as the poisonous or edible mushroom, i.e. it can replace them. There are 34 chips and the winner is the player with the most points won. The chips have the photos of the threatened species of mushrooms in Croatia. There are more than 350 of them!!!