The Da Vinci Game
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Da Vinci Game is a board game inspired by Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. Players solve puzzles, riddles, logic problems and conundrums in a race against the clock, and the other players. It can be played with three to six players or teams. The game was created by Martin Woods and Allison Carmichael and developed and designed by Games Talk. It is being distributed by Fun and Games.
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[edit] The Da Vinci Code fad
This game was developed in response to the large public response to Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. The New York Times bestseller spawned numerous other product, including parodies such as The Va Dinci Cod. Part of the reason for the huge popularity of the novel and the ensuing fad was an advertising campaign that used the artwork in the American version of the bookjacket. The bookjacket had various codes, and person who solved would be given a prize. Several thousand people solved the codes, and one person was randomly chosen as winner live on the television show Good Morning America.
[edit] Symbolism and codes in the game
The Da Vinci Game uses sybmolism on the board and for the playing pieces, much of it referring to the sacred feminine and linking to Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code. The board itself is a pentacle, an ancient symbol representing peace, harmony and cosmic order.
Cards are represented by four types of symbol, also used on the board:
- The codex, a handwritten book from late Antiquity or the Early Middle Ages, is a symbol for secret messages because it corrodes easily. The symbol is used in the game for riddles that reveal secret words. It is claimed that Leonardo Da Vinci used codes on codex for added secrecy.
- The key denotes power over whatever the key unlocks and in the game is used as the symbol for the logic clues, where logic is needed to unlock a numeric answer.
- Roses have different meanings depending on their colour, the white rose is symbolic of innocence and the feminine and the red rose, true love and the masculine. The Da Vinci Game uses a pink dog rose to signify a graceful merging of both. It is used to denote geographical locations on our planet, many of them, but not all, reflecting the beauty of the rose.
- The Vitruvian Man shows the perfect human dimensions and is indicative of the divine number Phi. In The Da Vinci Game, the Vitruvian Man represents creative genius, art, music, film, and literature and the amazing people who created them, their names and creations hidden in anagrams.
The pieces represent the goddess or feminine symbols and are:
- Owl, for the Greeks, the owl was associated with the goddess Athena, who was a goddess of wisdom. She was considered to be the embodiment of spirituality and wisdom.
- Chalice, an ancient symbol, long before it became the symbol of the Holy Grail, it was completely female in its symbolism, from the water it carried, the female element, to its shape as a womb-like receptacle.
- Cat, in ancient Egypt, the cat had her own goddess, Bastet and is also seen as a sacred familiar to witches and wise women.
- Bell, bells are used in rituals to focus the mind, summon spirits and cleanse an area of negative energy. Their shape also signals femininity.
- Shell, or Ammonite resembles the ram-like horns of Ammon, the Egyptian deity of life and reproduction.
- Dolphin, is seen as a joyful and playful animal of the sea and has always symbolized fun and harmony, playfulness and joy.
[edit] See also
- Da Vinci's Challenge, another contemporary board game
