“You’re Either With Them Or Against Them…Sometimes You’re Both!”
Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY
Okay, it turns out I was wrong yesterday when I said I was wrong about us all living in a Philip K. Dick reality :
A War On Terror board game designed in Cambridge has been seized by police who claim the balaclava in the set could be used in a criminal act.
The board game was deemed to be a “criminal item.”
“Surely no member of the public is going to believe that a board game could be used as a weapon?”
War on Terror, similar to games like Risk, revolves around creating empires that compete and wage war.
Each player starts as an empire filled with good intentions and a determination to liberate the world from terrorists and from each other.
Then the reality of world politics kicks and terrorist states emerge.
Andrew said: “The terrorists can win and quite often do and it’s global anarchy. It sums up the randomness of geo-politics pretty well.”
All High Street retailers declined to stock the controversial game. But more than 12,000 copies have been sold online or through independent stockists.
12,000 non-mainstream sales for an independent board game is excellent work.
More here.
Here are the rules for the War On Terror board game :
The game is for two to six players.
All players begin with fledgling empires on a world map which they expand through the acquisition of land, oil and cities.
At any time players can abandon the “pursuit of liberty and oil” in favour of becoming a terror state - or they are designated a terror state by a random “Axis of Evil” spinner.
Empires can also train their own terrorists to target rival empires, although these groups often turn on you later in the game.
What’s the problem here? This is the exact same kind of scenario-exploring, role-playing games that the world’s militaries have been using intensely in the past decade.
So they can play war games with toys and we can’t?
(via BoingBoing and the Cambridge News)
More on the game from the official website :
Everyone starts with the best intentions. Then things start to get cramped. Then you notice your neighbour has more oil than you. Before long, war is waged, nukes are dropped, revolutions are fought and terrorists are doing your dirty work…
So how do you ‘liberate’ the world these days? Is it OK to fund terrorism to defeat a greater evil? Do weapons of mass destruction exist? And what’s with that balaclava?
A selection of game play cards from the War On Terror board game :
A reality based board game explaining the methodology, ideologies, and exploring the desires, that link state warfare and terrorist violence.
Just like the real world.
Too close to reality.
“You’re Either With Them Or Against Them…Sometimes You’re Both!” from the ‘WoT’ board game.
