Guardians of the São Jacinto Preserve

Support "Guardians of São Jacinto Preserve": a cooperative game inspired by the São Jacinto Dunes Natural Preserve.

There is a place in Portugal that deserves to be played ... and preserved.

The São Jacinto Dunes Nature Preserve is one of the last wild refuges on the Portuguese coast. It has been a protected area since 1979, located between Aveiro and Ovar, in Portugal, and stands out for its biodiversity and the uniqueness of its dune ecosystem.

Dunes that hold centuries-old secrets, forests that shelter diverse reptiles and amphibians , lagoons where ducks and other birds seek refuge . A place that smells of plants and salt, that has the green and yellow colors of the dunes, and that can be felt in the song of the tits and the wind through the pine trees. A place that exists and that we need to know in order to learn how to care for it.

It was from this desire to care that it was born. Guardians of São Jacinto Preserve is a cooperative board game that puts two players or teams together to build a balanced nature preserve. It's not enough to have many species. It's not enough to have many visitors. You need a balance between fauna and flora , respect for habitats, and attention to invasive species, acacias and weeping willows, which threaten everything you've built.

In each turn, terrain tiles are revealed (including Lagoons, Dunes, and Forests) along with species tokens that you need to place intelligently. Healthy habitats attract visitors. Unbalanced habitats result in penalties. And what happens when invasive species take over a habitat? That's Kipá. The one who saves it is a magical horse that roams the preserve and restores it to its natural balance. A name that the community of São Jacinto knows well: it was the name of the forest ranger's horse that protected the national forest before the Preserve existed.

This game wasn't invented at a desk. It was built with the participation of the São Jacinto community , in three co-creation sessions that brought together seniors with memories of the forest before the creation of the Preserve, children who drew foxes and herons on their game boards, local partners, and representatives from the ICNF (Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests). Each piece of the game has a real story behind it. Each mechanism was born from a genuine conversation.

With your support, we will be able to produce its first edition (prototype) and bring São Jacinto to where it belongs: into the hands of those who love nature and to the tables of those who are yet to discover it.

As dunas servem como barreira natural entre o interior e o mar, protegendo contra o avanço do oceano.

About the author

This game involves many people.

This idea originated from two Guardians of Nature : Sofia Vogensen and Carla Santos , with the institutional support of Business as Nature . The game itself is being developed by Carolina Semrau and Augusto Lima from the Camera With No Name project, lovers of board games and nature, creators of the board game The Trash Travelers. But we didn't create it alone . São Jacinto: Guardians of the Preserve is, first and foremost, a game of the São Jacinto community.

Over three co-creation sessions, the local community helped build each layer of this game. The seniors brought memories that no book can hold: the forest ranger everyone called Kipá, the women who made bonfires to clean the acacia trees, the youth who climbed onto the sand of the trucks, the sea bream secretly picked to buy shoes at the Festa da Senhora da Areia (Our Lady of the Sand Festival). The children drew the characters, named the villains (the weeping willow, the acacia trees), and confirmed that there is a magical horse with powers to heal nature.

Our role was to listen , systematize, and transform all of that into mechanisms that work on a 4x4 grid where ecological balance translates into points, where cooperation is not optional, and where the Kippah exists because an entire community remembered it.

We are not a publisher. We are not a company. We are a group of people who believe that a game with soul and purpose can change the way a family spends an afternoon, how a class learns about ecosystems, or how a person remembers why it is worthwhile to protect what is still valuable in nature . And we need you for the next step.

1º Sessão de Co-Construção do Jogo com a comunidade no Centro Social e Paroquial de S. Jacinto

Budget and due dates

What do we need and why?

The true goal of this phase of the project is €3700 to cover costs from sessions held with the S. Jacinto community to the creation and testing of a prototype with the public. However, €2500 will be the minimum cost to support the production by Câmera with no Name and institutional support from Business as Nature, representing only ~70% of the actual cost. Every cent is tracked and will be transparently disclosed to supporters through this platform.

The budget details:

1. Prototype production – 50%

• Printing, design, and 2 iterations/revisions included.

• Costs of community-based testing (2 community-based tests, including travel expenses)

2. Project management and administrative work – 20%

• Co-creation sessions and administrative work carried out by the Nature Guardians of S. Jacinto.

• Administrative costs of project management (drafting project proposals, managing digital communities, marketing, and partnerships)

3. Institutional support from Business as Nature – 10%

Business as Nature is an organization that promotes regenerative and innovative solutions with a positive impact on nature and communities, and is also the governing body of the Guardians of Nature of S. Jacinto project, of which we are a part.

• Strategic monitoring and institutional support

• Promoting the fundraising campaign through the association's official communication channels.

4. Reinvestment margin for the final production phase – 10%

5. PPL platform commission cost – 10%

Implementation plan (from March to the end of July)

Images

Documents

• campanha_angariacao_2026-1.pdf

  pdf • 224.27 KB