In this episode, we discuss a forthcoming board game about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and ask why some subjects feel uncomfortable when turned into games. We explore whether the controversy comes from the topic itself, the tone, the medium, the time elapsed since the events or the cultural distance from them. We compare this with other difficult subjects represented in films, books, video games and board games, from the Second World War and the war on terror to natural disasters and pandemics.

We then look more closely at what games actually do, especially the idea of adopting temporary agency: playing a role without morally endorsing it. We ask whether participatory media are judged differently because players actively make choices, rather than simply watching or reading. Finally, we broaden the discussion into what makes board games compelling at all, comparing them with sport, horror films and other forms of imaginative suspension, before ending with a few reflections on why board games can be both intellectually rich and emotionally difficult to explain to non-gamers.

The Troubles boardgame: https://www.compassgames.com/product/the-troubles-shadow-war-in-northern-ireland-pay-later/

Guardian article about the controversy: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/23/target-mainland-planned-troubles-board-game-condemned-in-northern-ireland

La Famiglia: The Great Mafia War: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/367517/la-famiglia-the-great-mafia-war

Labyrinth: The War on Terror: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/62227/labyrinth-the-war-on-terror-2001

Agency as Art by C. Thi Nguyen: https://academic.oup.com/book/32137

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast brought to you by Aleph Insights and produced by me, Fraser McGruer. I'm here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. On this podcast we look at a wide range of topics from an analytical viewpoint.

And today we're discussing a board game about the Troubles. Nick, weigh in on this please.

Yeah, it looks very interesting, this game. It's been, it's actually been in the pipeline for at least five years.

These, these sorts of games can take a long time to develop and play, test and balance, particularly because. So it's, it's got six players.

Anyway, this game apparently can be up to six players and the players are the British military, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Provisional ira, then loyalist paramilitaries and then two factions, one for the Nationalist politicians and one for Unionist politicians. And I think this is going to be, is. It looks like it's going to be highly asymmetric.

Like everyone has different types of pieces and you know, has different capabilities and probably has different agendas and different objectives.

And it's a card driven game, which means that there's probably lots of events, historically accurate events that are on cards which do different things.

And I think, you know, it's going to be about, probably about quite a lot of negotiation between players to see if they can, you know, help form temporary alliances and so on and so forth.

Anyways, it's, it's in the, it's in a lineage of board games called, which are generally called counterinsurgency or coin games, which have been around, yeah, for a good 10, 15 years now, possibly longer.

And they are all a bit like this, you know, they all have kind of asymmetric factions, some of which are sort of underground and a bit terroristy and some of which are, you know, more political and some of which are conventional and military and so on. And so they're really good at, very good at learning about stuff about historical events. Right, Sounds great, yes.

What's not to like? Sign me up.

Exactly. Well, according to the Guardian in an article in January, this has caused some controversy in Northern Ireland.

I thought you were saying North London.

I think it's probably more there than in Northern Ireland, to be honest. It says disclosure of its existence has prompted an outcry. Well, I Mean it has been on their website for five years.

But, but this, this article is from January. I think the. The gut. Someone discovered it and manufactured a controversy. So apparently a victims group said that it could re. Traumatize people.

Kenny Donaldson said it's oversimplifying a complex issue and minimizing suffering. He this chap said the proposed game overlooked the conflict's enduring legacy. What would be the likely response of September 11th families?

Were these US producers to make a comparable board game about September 11th with players playing the FGA. That's the add on terrorist murdering pilot, etc.

Well, I hope he doesn't find out about Labyrinth, the war on terror, which is a board game about exactly that topic and has been. One of the ways you can win that game is to detonate a WMD on US soil, for example.

But, but you know, and there's a little bit of controversy about that. But also, I mean, have you heard of a conflict called World War II?

But at the same time I find myself thinking, well, I sort of get it. There's something possibly about. There's something a bit icky about and I don't agree with this and I'm wondering if we can make sense of it.

There's something bit icky about making a board game about Northern Ireland. Now is it the topic. Is the, the fact that it's a board game, something to do it. You know, what's going on. Why. Why is this controversial? What?

Why is it that there are some topics that appear in media and are considered controversial or too soon or something and not others. Others just get a pass. Why is, you know, why is. Why is World War II. Okay.

Yeah. Why. Why are board games about pandemics?

Okay, right, exactly. Yeah, good point.

It's. It's one of those things, as you say, I can. So there's the.

I can definitely sort of see that chap's point and as you say, feels a bit sort of not right. But when you start to push these points to their logical conclusion, it all starts to break down a bit. It all starts to fall apart a bit.

Yeah. What about films about the choppins? There've been loads of those.

Yeah. And films about other kinds. I mean, other kinds of tragedies. I think it's worth exploring things like natural disasters.

If you'd been. If your city had been destroyed by a massive volcano.

Yes. Or a tidal. Or a sort of tidal wave or a tsunami or something.

Meteor. Yeah.

Yes, yeah. I mean, but they were also like, there's like the movie Titanic, you know, other human, human disasters like that.

Yeah, my granny said that it was too soon.

Well, okay.

So yeah. So what is the source of this like voyeurism that people are worried about?

So, you know, I'm nothing if not this. A couple of instinctive reactions.

Go for it.

I mean, straight in time feels like a factor that seems to be one element.

Second thing, potentially, I don't know if use is the word, but sort of purpose of, of said thing that's created because one thing, creating a film which could be done in a sort of very respectful, ponderous sort of biopic kind of way or if you did a comedy about the Titanic or something. But I'm thinking about entertainment. So sort of a game, a board game is I guess for entertainment purposes. So. And of course films are as well.

But there's an element of how you do that, I guess.

But I think you've touched on a few things here and I think just to sort of slightly separate them out a bit, I think we've got topics. So the things that might be coming together to create controversy here or might be creating the sense that something is too sensitive.

We've got three things to think about. I think one is topic. So what is it about? In this case it's about the troubles. But I, I've got a few other examples of controversial media.

One is tone, as you said, like a comedy, a light hearted approach to something. It's going to be tricky to pull off. And you remember the La Vita Bella, which was.

Is that film, Roberto Benini's film comedy about, about, you know, a holocaust. Yeah. Concentration camp, obviously. Deftly, deftly handled, I think.

But, but you know, it's harder to do that if you're going to take a light hearted tone. So we've got topic, we've got tone. And then I think as you mentioned, medium, I think very important and I.

And we can talk about precisely what it is about board games versus other types of thing. But if I, if I get. List some, some other, some other controversial.

You got topic, topic, tone, topic, tone and medium.

Nick, go for it.

Sorry, called what, sorry?

Super Columbine Massacre.

Oh, good Lord.

Yeah.

That was.

Controversial films, I think, slightly. Slightly more likely to be given a pass.

But there's United 93, which is from about September 11th hijack, where they kind of wrested control of the plane from the terrorists. Yeah. Zero Dark Thirty film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Yeah, you're being a dark elf and casting black magic and that kind of thing.

In the same vein, that Harry Potter can be a bit controversial. Exactly, yeah.

Okay, so controversial books.

Lolita, American Psycho, Clockwork Orange, obviously controversial in one sense, but at the same time, actually just have enough of a kind of literary consider to have enough literary merit that I think they are. They're controversial, but definitely given a pass.

What's. What's Factory? Just saying.

Right. I'd never read it, but all right. Yeah. So. So anyway, there. There you go. There's a bunch of other controversial things we can throw in the mix and ask.

Okay, what makes it controversial? Um, I mean. Yeah, controversial. Hard to think. I mean, I don't know about controversial artworks, visual arts, material arts, controversial music.

Less easy to think of, certainly, than the more representational.

Yeah. I think mediums is an interesting one because I think form, certain forms of art definitely get a pass.

In fact, they're celebrated as an exploration of something tragic to bring.

You know, you could read in the same Guardian newspaper, you might celebrating or a particular artwork because it's drawing attention to a particularly nasty bit of something that happened and it's bringing, you know, giving it attention it deserves and that kind of thing. Why is that different?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are your factors, Peter?

What do you mean? You've got three factors. I've got three more different. I think distinct ones. I had time.

So things that are all further in the past, I think, by and large are less sensitive. If it's outside of living memory, then you can explore in a way that doesn't directly affect people.

And I, you know, you could argue, well, the troubles is in living memory. And certainly people are living with the sort of hangover of the Troubles. So there's. But maybe in a hundred years time, different story.

Plus you've got all this sort of historical comment up until that point to give you a more potentially a richer view. Different, lots of different viewpoints on it. Scale the size of the effect. If it was a massive catastrophe for lots of people, it's going to be that.

I think that sort of the hangover of that will carry on further than if it was localized and then what I've called distance but really, I mean sort of cultural distance. I think it's, it's sort of potentially less controversial the further away it is. So if you're.

So there's a cultural distance effect there that means that the art form will be more or less controversial.

That is interesting you mentioned that because in the world of board games, probably the biggest revolution in terms of the medium over the Last sort of 30, 40 years has been the rise of what were originally called German board games and are now just called Euro games, which are games that like explicitly avoid conflict. You know, for obvious reasons war gaming is considered to be more more sensitive in.

We don't talk about the war.

Well than, than. And so games like Settlers of Catan, which was the first big one.

But also, you know, really it's a huge, probably the mainstream really style of board games now where you know, players, there's less direct conflict, more kind of indirect competition and that, but you're sort of building things rather than trying to destroy other people's stuff. And you know, it's been a huge, huge. It's been a hugely significant movement within board gaming for the same reason.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting but I think Peter's fact. Additional factors actually I, I would say drill into what, what I covered in topic.

I would say it's like what is it about the topic that that means that it's not too soon. And so we've got, you've got time and scale and like physical distance. I don't know if that's how much that's connected.

So you know, the, the fact that. Well, for example, is it. There's been a game for 15 years called the Distant Plane. Which is about the Afghanistan war.

Probably not likely to be as controversial here anyway because you know, it's just distant. It's distant in terms of our direct experience. Yeah, so yeah, so I'm sure. I think that must do a pretty good job.

Also one of the things when you mentioned there, Peter, was scale. I think you talked about something along the lines of impact or people affected, something like that.

But also I guess within that and it relates to topic as well, which is seriousness, let's say because you can have something that's fairly low impact but has affected lots of people or you could have something that's just not affecting many people but just quite serious in nature. Let's say there was a game about just having a hobby of killing kittens.

Let's say seriousness is probably not that big, probably not that many people affected but quite a serious thing in some ways or quite a bad thing I think to kill kittens.

There's actually a game called Exploding Kitten. There is actually I've never played it, I don't know anything about it.

Yeah, well that's a good point because actually it's sort of relatively comedic. Well yeah, but also potentially even worse. Sort of like it's not funny killing kittens. Except it is. Anyway, we digress. Where are we going?

What do we want to move on to? What we.

Well, I think. Well, so I think if we look at the difference in the way that people respond.

So I'm thinking of media, I think we have covered off topic like what is it that makes a topic more likely to be controversial as you say? You know, I think if it is distant or not particularly serious in the first place, you know, you can trade those off.

If you want to make a game about the 30 years war, well that's okay because it was 400 years ago kind of thing. You know, if you want to make a game about something that's just happened, going to be harder and you'll have to handle it more deftly.

But I think there is something about games in particular.

So I mean if you think about this issue about agency and I think here, you know, this is something which non board gamers and non gamers in general, non computer gamers struggle I think to understand how you can adopt an agency without committing to it.

So in other words, how you can play the part of, you know, let's say the German army without being a committed Nazi in real life, you know that you can. And in the same way you can watch a film like Downfall or Bruno, Bruno Gans was He called can play the part of Hitler without actually being a Nazi.

You know that you as a board gamer or as a computer gamer can adopt one of those agencies in the same way that you can act a part of. And it doesn't make you morally corrupt to do that. But I think that's something which is harder to explain in the case of.

In the case of a game where, you know, an outsider might just say, well, this guy, he's. He's. He's kind of rooting for the Germans to win World War II because he's playing Germany in this board game. He must be a Nazi.

Who else would do that? I mean, a morally upstanding person would play that board game and make Germany lose. Right?

That is, I think partly what lies behind the fact that board games are going to get into trouble because a lot of people don't understand this concept of kind of role playing in a game. So, so that I. So yeah, this, this idea of sort of adopting an agency. Well, the question is, is that. Can that morally corrupt you? Can you become.

Is it. Is it potentially, you know, if we played the Troubles board game and you know, and I'm the ira, have I got.

Have I other things I do in the game gonna be morally questionable in real life? Is me choosing to bomb the mainland when I'm playing the part of the IRA in this board game a morally questionable thing to do in real life?

Which me doing it in the game, is that morally wrong? I suspect we all have.

Are we going to make people do things that are immoral because they're play acting the part of people who are doing things that are immoral?

I like this. I hadn't thought about this from the, from the. As you said, from this viewpoint of agency.

But also it begs a wider question of, you know, what are games for? What are board games for? I think reminds me a little bit. I think we want to do an episode about models and what are models for?

Oh yeah, but okay, still, where do we want. Because you know, your actual question there. I think it's rhetorical. I suspect.

Not really.

No, I think, I think actually the answer is fine.

I think, I think it's a good point and it is one of the sources of outrage.

People's lack of understanding of the nuance of, you know, gaming is about role playing, is about suspending who you are and playing the part of someone who you're not. And that is part of the sort of. That's where the enjoyment comes from.

It's not because you relish being a Nazi or relish being the pathogen in a sort of game about illness. It's that the suspension of who you are and your morals to play the part is just a mechanic that you use to be effective in that game.

Well, it just makes me think I want to ex parent militaries would be into this or would just go, it's a bit boring compared to what it was actually like it was way.

Yeah, well, I know, I know a lot of. I mean I, I'm.

I'm straddled various different subsets of the world of board games and I know quite a lot of war gamers who are themselves currently or former military. You know, and so I don't. There isn't a sense of like, oh, you know, I've seen this thing in real life. It's insensitive and wrong to.

To play war games. You're making a game out of something really serious. Actually.

It's probably the same people who are interested in that kind of, you know, the thought process.

Let's think, let's think about this from another point of view. Right. Which is that I, you know, I think generally speaking you're probably of the view that it's all. Yeah, it's fine.

All this, all this stuff, all these games. I can't see what it's all about.

Right.

Can't see what the fuss is about.

No, I can see what the fuss.

Right. Or rather. Okay, it doesn't trouble you, let's say that.

I mean, generally speaking, as a hypothesis, I think you'd probably be good to play games at most stuff go. Fine, I'll do it. Right, but is there any topic or area that you wouldn't. Because I can think of at least one that maybe you probably wouldn't.

Maybe two.

Not.

Or is that not the point?

So the thing is that the. You know what? Yeah, I think I would probably say there is no board game that. Whose topic is off limits. There are.

There are just good and bad board games in the same way. And I'd say the same about any art form. I'd say the same about literature. You know, there's not, there shouldn't be anything that you that.

That is sort of off limits that literature should not tackle.

Well, literature or games.

The same, I'm saying the same thing. Like, like that the immorality of an artwork is not about what it is doing, it's more about how it's doing it.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so I think you could say that something like the triumph of the will its Existence is immoral because it's actually trying to encourage people to be Nazis.

Yeah, yeah.

Whereas a board game about, you know, the Eastern Front.

Yeah.

Is not trying to make you. It's not a piece of Nazi propaganda.

Could you take that further and push that argument further, say it's fine. A genuine question to have a board game about the Holocaust, for example. What do you reckon? Are there any out there? I presume not.

No, but. Well, yes, I mean, there are. There are board games, I think, which sort of touch on it. And it is interesting because you would think, well, it.

It sort of should belong in a World War II game.

And you might say, well, if you don't put something like that in, you're slightly, you know, sweeping, whitewashing some of the more problematic elements of Nazi Germany under the rug. You. But at the same time, I think people would find it would. It would. It would be very difficult to get a board game made if you said, right, you're.

Now you're the German High Command, by the way, one of the things you can do is. Is killed 6 million people. Yeah, you know, I, I think it would. It's one of those things that would be considered controversial.

Because it's considered controversial. Like, I don't think there's anything intrinsic about. About it, which means that it should be off limits. I mean, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Where are we going? What do we want to come on to?

Well, we haven't really. So we haven't really picked up and entertained the idea that, like, is it true that. That, you know, a participatory art form can be. Can be correct.

Be corrupting.

Yeah, I mean, I, I obviously I have a highly. I'm highly motivated to want to think that that's not true.

And I think the evidence is pretty much that, you know, computer games, for example, don't turn people into rampant killers. You know, that, that. I think playing first person shooter doesn't make you want to kill them.

I think it's.

The evidence is that that's not true, but I want to think about it and make sure I.

Okay, I'll posit a possibility then. I think that that might be true because that's not what they are designed to do. So.

But you could imagine a World War II board game being made specifically to be a piece of Nazi propaganda. So you could. So it's not just that it's not so crude as the Germans always win, but it's actually subt.

Subtly designed so that the ideology is passed on through the game.

The Russians do kind of brutal subhuman things.

Yeah, that kind of thing. So I think just as any piece of media can be propaganda, I think a game could be doing the same sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah. I think, I mean, and I think that there's, and we should apply the same standards as we would to any other work of art.

Which is not to say that no art can be immoral. Because it obviously can. Because it can, it can, it can be propaganda.

And I mean that in the sense of it can be trying to transfer beliefs about things that are, you know, that we would consider immoral. There's no doubt about, I mean, and I, you know, there's lots of. You, you.

There are 19 certain very questionable 19th century board games, for example, in, you know, which, which would not be allowed today because they're, you know, the, they contain racial stereotypes and those kinds of. Yeah, and, and yeah, you could, I mean, I don't see any. But there's.

The point is that that is about how the thing is handled and what it's doing and what it's designed to do, not about the topic itself. You see what I mean? Right. So I, Yeah, I, I guess, yeah, I guess that's it really.

And, and yeah, I think just a slight sort of builder. I think it's. The participatory nature of games is.

I think we've said this actually is what gives them more suspicion because people, because not everyone's a board gamer, they don't necessarily understand what participation is, but it's the fact that it's an active thing rather than a passive.

Yeah.

And I think it's the same fallacy that people have non board gamers have when they look at a bunch of people playing, you know, competing very, very hard in a, in a board game and imagine that they must in real life be feeling rivalrous or be, or be disliking each other or being competitive with each other in real life. But the point is that the, that competition can be limited to just the board. Right.

So, you know, I can be playing the part of the IRA without actually wanting to kill the person playing the, the person who's the ruc. You know.

Yeah.

Right. Okay. And so actually I think we've sort of run our course with this. Okay. I think we said what we want to say.

However, I do actually want to explore something else which you're getting into there, Nick. Okay. And so I actually want to sort of slightly reframe what we're talking about in this episode because we've been talking a lot about board games.

Right. And actually I want to explore that. I want to sort of go off topic, if you like, edit point. Are you happy to do that? Because.

What, talk about board games. Yeah, I mean, you know, we should just become a board games podcast.

Yeah. So look, this is what I want to ask about.

We might need a different host.

Yeah, good call. Yeah. What I want to ask about is this, is that I know you think that I'm not a gamer, not a board gamer, and I think you might be right.

We don't think you're not a board gamer. We know you're not a board gamer.

Well, maybe Nick thinks you're not a board gamer. I think you're the most board gamey of all of us here, probably. What is it?

And obviously board games is such a general term, but I'm guessing what I'm going to use, what is it? Because I'm interested.

This thing about agency, I'm interested in this thing about, you know, what is happening when we're playing these sorts of games.

But to start off with a particular question for people who don't particularly play or even like me, think they like it, but maybe don't really get it as much as we should, maybe. What is it that we're missing that people don't get, do you think?

Or.

Yeah, what is it that you get out of it?

Well, I wonder if there is an overlap, or at least it's the same kind of distinction.

So my girlfriend doesn't like horror films, and I think she finds them stressful in the way that you might, if you would, if you were experiencing what was going on in real life. It's like she's invested in it. Whereas I like horror films and I like watching them actually primarily as sort of almost like.

So I can look at the actual art of it. You know, I just quite like horror films as things that have been made to be enjoyed, if you sort of mean. And I.

And I feel like there's something similar going on, you know, that. That the. The level at which I play a board game is. I'm adopting.

So there's a really good book about the philosophy of board games called Agency as Art. And it's. And it's by Nguyen anyway.

And his argument is that what the medium of board games as an art is, what distinguishes it is the fact that you're adopting an agency, you're adopting the. A particular.

You could be given a particular goal which you're expected to try and achieve, and you get given a particular set of Rules and capabilities. And the fun is trying to achieve those things with that set of capabilities.

The theme which is pasted on top of that, which might be, you know, World War II or something, is in a way is a sort of handrail just to give you a sense of a way of thinking about things. But what you're really doing is you're going, well, I'm going to move those cubes over to there, and I'm going to roll this dice.

And I'm hoping that this happens. And so eventually I'll get the game into a state which means that I've won. That's the aim of it.

It's not really not that different to, you know, when you play football, you play water polo, don't you, Fraser?

Do you.

Do you hate the other team?

No.

No. Well, it's the. I mean, you're like, you're adopting an agency. You're, you're.

You get in the pool and you decide that your aim, for some reason, even though it doesn't make any sense to an outsider, is to get a ball into a goal and the other team are trying to stop you doing that. Right. It does it. That makes sense to you. And I think it would make sense to most people. Like, okay, I get it.

Temporarily, for the duration of this game, I am trying to achieve this thing which is of no intrinsic importance to me.

And Alba deliberately in conflict with somebody else is trying to achieve the opposite.

Yeah. And, and, and it's, I think, very difficult to explain why that's fun. I mean, I think it's for the same reason that doing anything else is fun.

You know, that enjoying other kinds of art is fun. You know, if you. Why is watching. Why is watching a thriller fun? For all sorts of reasons, but it's not, it's not intrinsically anything.

It's not intrinsically problematic. And watching a thriller and enjoying it, kind of being invested in it is compatible with knowing it's fictional. It's compatible with, you know, with.

With sympathizing with different characters without necessarily supporting them or thinking they're morally good. You know, so it's. Yeah, there you go. That's what I think. Agency is temporarily, you know, adopting a goal and agreeing to attempt to achieve it.

Yeah, because.

Artificial setting.

Yeah, I mean, just to sort of comment on that, because actually I often, I talk to, you know, fellow water polar players about what they like about it, and it actually gets very close to what you're talking about. It's. I mean, we use the words of. I mean, escapism or I find it quite transporting being something else for a while doing.

And it sort of takes your mind.

All sorts of stuff.

It's sort of related to the suspension of disbelief which you need to have in order to get into a film or a book or something is sort of suspending yourself, isn't it? For a bit. It's like I'm no longer putting myself on pause. Yeah, I'm putting myself on pause and I'm now being somebody else with a different aim.

And it's one of the things not to dwell on this too much that actually quite like about sport is that it's that the people who, your opponents, you've actually often got a huge amount in common with them.

So.

And there's something about that. So it's that sort of being with sort of like minded people as well, I guess. Which I'm guessing is a similar thing in board games. Okay.

Although when you're actually really into a board game, you don't really pay any attention to who you're playing it with. Right. You're so fixated on, you know, the next. Although you probably, yeah, am I gonna be able to grow that wheat in time?

Although, like if you were to bump into a board gamer like in a different setting, you'd probably like them, right? Oh yeah.

Guaranteed that they'd have certain personality features in common with me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So look, let's. So here's our question and Nick, you're the focus here.

So the question is, was gonna be, hey, recommend a board game to us, maybe some recent ones or a particular genre, but just to sort of, for everyone here who's listening is, we've got a bit of previous here, right, which is that you, thank God this is now about better part. 10 Years ago you made me play a game that you said was incredible. What was it? That was Twilight Struggle and I, my God, I hate it.

It was at one point considered the best war game ever made.

Yeah.

All I know is about 3 o' clock in the morning and I had to drive to Kent and you were going, no, Fraser, we'll just finish this bit here where now you'll Gorbachev or whatever and it's just like, oh God, I've got to move some more bits of cardboard around. That's it.

So you, you were never, you were never, you know, Stalin, you were never Gorbachev, you were never Khrushchev, you didn't live it. Which is why, you know, you couldn't understand it.

The problem is me, it Feels like.

Well, I mean, I think it's equivalent to you say, why don't you read this brilliant book? It's called Sense and Sensitivity, Sense and Sensibility. And I look at it and I go, I don't get it. It's just a load of words on a page. It's just.

It's just letters printed on a page.

To be fair to me, I wanted to get it. But anyway, notwithstanding this.

Yes, I know, but do you know what I mean?

Like, I think the objection that this book that you've recommended is merely a load of words printed on a page is the same as this game we're playing is just pieces of cardboard being moved around. I think it's the same. It's the same misunderstanding of the level at which you're supposed to experience it.

I don't think so. I think that's what you think because you're into this.

This.

But I don't want to argue. I just want to get some recommendations from you.

Twilight Struggle.

Yeah, I mean, Twilight struggles up there. The trouble is. So, however, having just mentioned Jane Austen, I bought a game called Obsession last year, and it's a surprise hit with the.

With the family.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah. Basically, you're each different, slightly impoverished Derbyshire families in the 19th century.

And you have to build new rooms in your house, like, build a new breakfast room or perhaps, you know, a conservatory or something. And then you host little parties for the local gentry and they. And your friends are a deck of cards. And so you upgrade.

You get like, you know, sort of lord.

Better friends.

Yeah, you do.

You upgrade your friends.

You know, you might end up with a. Accidentally making friends with sort of an American heiress who actually removes prestige if she comes to one of your parties. But. But basically you're doing that. You're upgrading your house, you're inviting people over. Prestige is going up. And all the while you.

There are these. This, the. The posh family. You're. You're ultimately. You're trying to win their. Their hand in marriage. So it's a.

It's.

It's really fun. Yeah, it sounds amazing.

I think I played it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really. It's really fun. You whack on the old. Whack on a bit of Chopin or Strauss. Yeah, yeah.

My family really down on that, by the way. Every time I try and play games and have, you know, influenced by yourself positively, I think, put on some music that fits.

They're always really down on it.

Well, sorry, but maybe that's because I'm.

Always trying to play German cabaret music. But anyway, what else? Is there anything else?

No, I think that'll do. I mean, I'm happy. I'd be more than happy to do an entire podcast episode of Board Game Recognition.

We should actually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so let's end there. You've been listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast brought to you by Aleph Insights and produced by me, Fraser McGruer.

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