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War on Terror - The Boardgame
Ok, so shit is hitting the fan over at the Geek over this guy's game. It's called "War on Terror, the Boardgame".
From the press release:
Do you enjoy spreading filthy propaganda? Do you revel in rampant paranoia? Does the thought of regime changes,
revolutions, political kidnappings and plane hijacks excite you? Notwithstanding the secret treaties, forged documents, oil prospecting, dodgy collaborations, diplomats and suicide bombers? Are you cunning, conniving, duplicitous, destructive and frequently plot your friends’ demise? Well this is the game for you. Now you can engage in war and the casual funding of terrorism, without the social repercussions and political backlash.
“YOU’RE EITHER WITH THEM OR AGAINST THEM... OR SOMETIMES YOU’RE BOTH!â€
As you might imagine the gamer folks at the Geek are all up in arms about this. My personal view is that it might be fun. I play some games that are kind of crap but are fun because of the theme. I think this theme is good. It is a satire after all. It does have the disadvantage of being very timely though. In other words, will it be fun in 15 years when all this shit is out of the public eye? Well... who knows? For now it might be fun.
To summarize the gameplay (there are currently no rules posted):
•Everyone starts with a vague empire set up anywhere on the globe ala Risk.
•You "expand" your empire by taking control of other spaces containing resources such as oil and nukes and what have you.
•The "Axis of Evil" is a spinner ala "The Game of Life" and it may designate your empire as being "Evil". If this happens you get access to another deck of "Terrorist Cards" that allow you to fuck shit up. You now have the choice in front of you to play these cards that grant you advantages or not play them and be "good".
•Alliances start to form between the empires and you can trade "secret messages" that grant some sort of advantage (though without the rules I'm not sure what those are. apparantly they are well worth it as it says they can go for a pretty penny).
•The next stage is as follows (directly qouted from the website): The end of Empires
Although it is possible to win the game with all the players still playing as Empires, the more likely outcome is that Empires are destroyed, bankrupted, or simply cave in and become terrorist players. As more empires fall they work together as a single terrorist player. With each new influx of terrorist cards and cash for the terrorist cause, the remaining Empires begin to wish that maybe they shouldn't have funded quite so much terrorism as they did. But no one learns.
•And finally the endgame, again quoted from the website:
There are a few possible endings to the War on Terror...
1. An empire liberates the world
They grab enough land, they build enough cities, they drop enough nukes, they manage to keep the terrorist threat under control and they liberate the world! This is the most common ending.
2. The terrorists claim the planet for their own
Through cunning use of political kidnaps, plane hijacks, terrorist attacks, suicide bombers - and all the other vicious strategies available to them - the terrorists destroy all the Empires and the world has no governments. Perhaps.
3. World peace
A rare but strangely satisfying end to the game. When there are no terrorists on the board, all remaining Empires can claim world peace, give each other a hug and go home knowing that they've learnt something special. This has happened once so far.
4. Never ending war
The game descends into chaos and the players sacrifice finishing it to save their sanity. Luckily, through 18 months of development and a healthy disregard for our own sanity, this doesn't happen that often anymore.
Now I think this sounds like a heap of fun. I am in no way offended by the theme and I'm actually quite interested in playing this.
Here is the link to the BGG forum thread about it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/117169/page/1
And here is the link to the company's site:
http://www.waronterrortheboardgame.com
So I was interested in what you all thought of this?
From the press release:
Do you enjoy spreading filthy propaganda? Do you revel in rampant paranoia? Does the thought of regime changes,
revolutions, political kidnappings and plane hijacks excite you? Notwithstanding the secret treaties, forged documents, oil prospecting, dodgy collaborations, diplomats and suicide bombers? Are you cunning, conniving, duplicitous, destructive and frequently plot your friends’ demise? Well this is the game for you. Now you can engage in war and the casual funding of terrorism, without the social repercussions and political backlash.
“YOU’RE EITHER WITH THEM OR AGAINST THEM... OR SOMETIMES YOU’RE BOTH!â€
As you might imagine the gamer folks at the Geek are all up in arms about this. My personal view is that it might be fun. I play some games that are kind of crap but are fun because of the theme. I think this theme is good. It is a satire after all. It does have the disadvantage of being very timely though. In other words, will it be fun in 15 years when all this shit is out of the public eye? Well... who knows? For now it might be fun.
To summarize the gameplay (there are currently no rules posted):
•Everyone starts with a vague empire set up anywhere on the globe ala Risk.
•You "expand" your empire by taking control of other spaces containing resources such as oil and nukes and what have you.
•The "Axis of Evil" is a spinner ala "The Game of Life" and it may designate your empire as being "Evil". If this happens you get access to another deck of "Terrorist Cards" that allow you to fuck shit up. You now have the choice in front of you to play these cards that grant you advantages or not play them and be "good".
•Alliances start to form between the empires and you can trade "secret messages" that grant some sort of advantage (though without the rules I'm not sure what those are. apparantly they are well worth it as it says they can go for a pretty penny).
•The next stage is as follows (directly qouted from the website): The end of Empires
Although it is possible to win the game with all the players still playing as Empires, the more likely outcome is that Empires are destroyed, bankrupted, or simply cave in and become terrorist players. As more empires fall they work together as a single terrorist player. With each new influx of terrorist cards and cash for the terrorist cause, the remaining Empires begin to wish that maybe they shouldn't have funded quite so much terrorism as they did. But no one learns.
•And finally the endgame, again quoted from the website:
There are a few possible endings to the War on Terror...
1. An empire liberates the world
They grab enough land, they build enough cities, they drop enough nukes, they manage to keep the terrorist threat under control and they liberate the world! This is the most common ending.
2. The terrorists claim the planet for their own
Through cunning use of political kidnaps, plane hijacks, terrorist attacks, suicide bombers - and all the other vicious strategies available to them - the terrorists destroy all the Empires and the world has no governments. Perhaps.
3. World peace
A rare but strangely satisfying end to the game. When there are no terrorists on the board, all remaining Empires can claim world peace, give each other a hug and go home knowing that they've learnt something special. This has happened once so far.
4. Never ending war
The game descends into chaos and the players sacrifice finishing it to save their sanity. Luckily, through 18 months of development and a healthy disregard for our own sanity, this doesn't happen that often anymore.
Now I think this sounds like a heap of fun. I am in no way offended by the theme and I'm actually quite interested in playing this.
Here is the link to the BGG forum thread about it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/117169/page/1
And here is the link to the company's site:
http://www.waronterrortheboardgame.com
So I was interested in what you all thought of this?
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