Wirikuta

Wirikuta is a postcard-sized game, compact and replayable, designed as a narrative and mechanical prologue to Oniria. Players take part in a symbolic pilgrimage along the path leading to Wirikuta, the sacred desert of the Wixárika people. Each game action represents the advancement of groups, a step, a threshold, or a trial. Rather than seeking perfect optimization, the game invites players to read the path ahead and adapt to it. In each game, three groups of Wixárikas are in play: those of Player A, those of Player B, and neutral groups. Players gradually move these groups along the path, advancing them step by step, and score points based on where they come to rest. Victory depends on the ability to compose with stop frequencies, sequences, and a careful occupation of space. Inspired by Mesoamerican and Aridoamerican conceptions of pilgrimage, dreaming, and initiation, Wirikuta does not seek to represent a real ritual or location literally. Instead, the game offers a symbolic and respectful transposition of these notions, based on information transmitted by the Wixárika people themselves as part of the route’s inscription on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Wirikuta deliberately embraces a minimal format to carry a dense and demanding ludic experience. —description from the publisher