schwejk

Good question! Unbelievably I don't have a good answer. I think that you have to fight within the system you're given, unless you take a strict Foucauldian view and believe that the only way forward is to demolish the current framework. So I guess I feel it's in one way undermining capitalism by using its structures to critique it... but I'd sympathise with anyone who claimed we're just part of the system. But there aren't many other options.

War on Terror got siezed as part of a raid on a protest camp when Kent Police were looking for weapons. They didn't find any, but they did find some bolt cutters and a few games of War on Terror which they siezed because of the balaclava that comes in the game.

This is the full story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/war-on-terror-boardgame-branded-criminal-by-police-889287.html

And here's the official police photograph they released to reporters who then mocked them mercilessly for it.

No rights violated obviously, but there was another time a shipment of games got held up at the port because of "war on terror" written all over the boxes... there was something suspicious there.

Now I don't know what to believe - loads of people complain it's too small. Admittedly it was meant to be of a composition that stretched more than it does... But yeh, clothing design isn't my strongpoint, I'm sorry.

I don't design games like most designers, building on a largely mathematical model. I try and use human decisions and psychology as a base for the mechanics in my game - so in that sense, every decision is meaningful, or at least it connects with your desires and aims more strongly than a strategic, mathematical evaluation.

So just for example, in War on Terror, you are allowed to fund terrorism as an easy means of weakening your enemies, but you do this in the full knowledge that you're making things worse not just for everyone, but for yourself in the long run... and yet, you still do it!

It gives me a lovely warm feeling to read things like this because, exactly! At the same time I understand why some people have a problem; board games are normal associated with wholesome family fun, not political critique. Although, interestingly many people don't know the true origins of Monopoly, for example.