Welcome to

BiyiGames

An independant boardgame company based in Montreal

The Game

Biyi.

Biyi is a strategy game for two players whose goal is to reach the bird’s nest in the opposite camp. To get there, you will have to cross the Salouen River and make your way into the opposing defense, blocking and using the opponent’s pieces.

Pieces are tokens and stacks of tokens that transform during the game. The mechanics of Biyi require players to take into account the three dimensions.

Biyi was created by educationist Jérôme Mariaud de Serre and mathematician Raphaël-James Lebel in 2019.

How to Play.

Biyi is a strategy boardgame for two players. that has the particularities of taking into account the horizontal and vertical, of keeping the same number of pieces on the board throughout the game and of seeing the pieces form and transform as the moves go by. You have to make your way forward by blocking or using the opponent’s pieces.

Rules

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The Legend.

The Han emperor, who had lost his wife, finds Empress Yang in the magic mountain, and both transform into Biyi, two birds with an inseparable wing.

From its powerful flight, Biyi ensures prosperity in the valley of Yunnan.

The villages of the valley lived in harmony until the day when mining and forestry companies approached more and more, exploiting the lands and forests of the valley.

Biyi appeared as a furious majesty in the sky, but suddenly a Feihong drone hits him.

The two birds with one wing separated by the impact fell each in a village on either side of the Salween. The villagers took care of them.

It was then that the birds transformed, and suddenly appeared the Han emperor who told the chief of the village of Bei: "We can no longer protect the valley, the village that will reunite us again with my sweet Yang, this village alone will be sure to have good harvests for years to come. We’ll make our nest there. Like dragons you will progress across the river, going over each other, without killing each other and for the return…”

In the village of Nan, Empress Yang appears to the head of the village and continues the emperor’s speech: "… make yourselves wings. One of you will fly over the Salween alongside my emperor, to me."

Each one becomes a bird with one wing and nestles in its nest.

The villagers make wings that they attach to their back, some stay close to the nest; others throw themselves towards the river, one on top of the other.

Yang, levitating on a playing board, turns to an old man: You, Shouxing, star of longevity, it is you who in this game lets the pieces live on the board in order to make your way to the nest, as in a moving maze of 91 squares. So for me, find the way, Shouxing." "91 was the age of this young Zaho Yan who ought to die at 19… I only had to swap the numbers in exchange for a good wine," said Shouxing, god of longevity.

The Han emperor, who is also levitating, turns to the other old man: "You, Luxing, star of honour, you who served my ancestor, see how the pieces of the game change status. Everything changes and grows like the child you carry; the pieces overlap, fit together and intertwine as nature does. So go for me and complete the incomplete Luxing." "Zhao Yan’s wine is so good that the jug is always half full", says Luxing, the god of abundance.

Shouxing plays with Luxing, under a mulberry tree. Luxing says: "Bixi!" He takes Shouxing’s "token-bird", which, with a cup in hand, looked a little drunk, and Luxing places it on his token. Biyi comes out of the mulberry tree and flies away.

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BiyiGames

Studio.

BiyiGames is an independent studio located in Montreal. The studio relies on a team of enthusiasts, who have been leading cognitive workshops in Kit Focus since 2011. It is within these workshops that dozens of games were created: memory games, letter games, skill games, and of course abstract and strategic games.

BiyiGames edits these games that are tested and improved every day, developing them and taking them to another level with experienced game designers.

The mission of BiyiGames is to offer high-performance and evolving games, with the most minimalist material possible, and that’s the beauty of it!

The Club.

Every Saturday, several players meet at the Biyi Club in Montreal. The Club can accommodate twenty players of all ages between 5 pm and 8 pm.

Tournaments and competitions are expected in 2021. A ranking will be available soon.

If you want to set up and open a Biyi Club in your city, you can contact us, we will be happy to accompany you in your efforts.

Author Words.

Jérôme Mariaud de Serre

Biyi is a game where chance does not stand a chance. Rather than eliminating the opponent’s pieces, a sort of moving maze emerges. A game where two sides engage in battle, without taking, dying and leaving the board; it is a game that is both ultra-competitive and at the same time that invites a form of concordance and dialogue.

Biyi is a joust in a legendary space, where each one fights, with the other, and as in Aikido, to "combine hearts together".

Everything in the box Biyi recalls this concordance: the overlapping tokens, the magnetized boards, the transparency of the bird-tokens, the wings of the villagers that form only one, the river Salouen that separates and unites the two villages, the graphic plates of Dali Wu which create by superposition and simultaneity events with a depth of image such that our gaze is extracted from the real world.

Again, concordance is expressed in this quest to combine an abstract game with a legend story, a bet that BiyiGames is willing to accept and win.

I would like to thank my co-author Raphaël-James Lebel who immediately saw the potential of such a game. Raphaël-James, a mathematician, took it to such a level after months of research that the balance between defense and attack is perfect. I offer him my admiration and gratitude.

I would like to thank my son François-Mathieu, a student in architecture, who designed the Biyi box, with a concern for harmony in lines and dimensions. François-Mathieu found the lightness and the retractable side we were looking for. He sees the box as a secret box, as a privilege.

I would like to thank Dali Wu, for her talent and energy invested in the research and execution of his stroke. Dali is a true artist, and because she is demanding, she reaches heights and depths not even thought possible. Through an original placement of the patterns, a choice of explosive colors and through transparency, she tried a graphic bet beyond our expectations.

I would like to thank my wife Natalia, who has been with the project since its beginning. She was able to believe in something immediately. She knew how to make a decision in all aspects of the game, the rules, the box and the legend. In a word, with her, Biyi flies in full sky and for a long time.

Our Partners.

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