Sometimes I assume that everybody around me knows the same things that I know. To wit: when I began teaching the second edition of Calimala — the first edition of which was published in 2017 and launched Fabio Lopiano’s career as a game designer — everyone at the table started talking about Kalamata olives, and not, you know, the Arte di Calimala, the cloth finishers guild that was the economic backbone of Florence for two centuries.

Why would I assume that everybody knows about the Arte di Calimala? Don’t ask me. I’m in the assumptions business, not the understanding my assumptions business. At any rate, Calimala isn’t a game that requires much historical knowledge. Sure, Lopiano includes a number of nods to Florentine business practices and even city governance, but it’s too razor-toothed to matter. This one is sharp. But it may, perhaps, contain the seeds that would lead Lopiano to clutter his later designs with interlocking systems.

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