Ema Stoličná
There is one thing all toys have in common – they are almost exclusively aimed at children who can see. There are, and have always been, very few games for visually impaired children. This is mainly true about board games. A young Slovak designer Nikoleta Čeligová, living and working in Prague, noticed this gap, deciding to create an innovative game Memonik. In this interview, she shares the details. Memonik is a board game in which visually impaired players can participate, as all that is needed is touch. The rules are rather simple and universal. The board comprises thirty-six little bowls in which there are eighteen different materials or things, including cork, a piece of carpet, wood, sandpaper or silicon. The aim is to find as many identical materials – couples as possible. During the game, players are blindfolded, the mask being part of the kit. “The players practise touch, hearing, as well as three-dimensional orientation and memory, striving to remember where, on the board, they could feel this or that material,” the designer adds.