Oh, December. You beautiful cozy lazy month. It is the month in which I delude that I can make 10000 different things, but, instead, I spend all my time reading and being with my family. Not a bad thing to do, don’t you agree?

December is also when winter begins. People see winter as a gloomy season, but I see it as the season of rest. If you look around, winter is when Nature goes to rest. Some animals go into hibernation, plants look dead, and sprouts and seeds lie sleeping under the snow. Winter is when Nature takes it slow.

This November has been weird. If I had to describe it, my first instinct would be to say that it felt like slipped time. After all, my emotional status has been all over the place, with moments of genuine excitement and moments of dread.

November is usually a bad month. It is always full of bad memories and events. Even this year, November hit again early in the month: once again, I had to attend a November funeral. So I was ready to accept another black month in which the best I could do was to collect the pieces.

We already know that Procedural Content Generation (PCG) is a masterful tool for building games. But can PGC become a game by itself? This seems a silly question at first. After all, what is the purpose of generating something if we do not use it afterward?

However, if you think that a bit more, you know that there is something else. If you are interested in PCG, you know that most enjoyment comes from the creation itself.

Therefore, the question is easy: of course, that PCG can be a game! And to prove that, I am going to show you five of the most beautiful examples of that I played in recent years.

As developers — especially game developers — we are naturally attracted to digital games: after all, video games are what we do; right? We are immersed in that world, we thrive for it, we learn from it, we discuss it. Because of that, we tend to forget physical games; in particular boardgames. However, boardgames may be much more than a simple alternative to multiplayer video game; they may be the best defense against mental health problems.