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Other Games, Development, & Campaigns => Other Games => Topic started by: J Arcane on June 26, 2009, 05:59:00 PM

Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: J Arcane on June 26, 2009, 05:59:00 PM
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/24/can-you-make-a-board-game-about-the-holocaust-meet-train/

Now you and the whole family can pretend to put people on a train to be slaughtered en masse in the comfort of your own home.

:barf:
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: shalvayez on June 26, 2009, 06:17:08 PM
Can you at least pretend that instead of Jews, you're rounding up hippies or Republicans, and sending them to Auschwitz instead?
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Benoist on June 26, 2009, 06:33:18 PM
Quote from: J Arcane;310536http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/24/can-you-make-a-board-game-about-the-holocaust-meet-train/

Now you and the whole family can pretend to put people on a train to be slaughtered en masse in the comfort of your own home.

:barf:
This is ... *shakes head*

And there's one person who played "train" and compared it to "Halo" of all games? And they're going on about it in the article? Give me a break. People don't need to play more "train". People need to get a basic historical education that's worth more than peanuts for state statistics. That's what they need.
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Phantom Black on July 02, 2009, 06:08:05 PM
Oh my god.
She can't be serious about that...
That's disgraceful, dusgusting AND horribly done, theme-wise.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v359/DonGnocci/double.jpg)
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Premier on July 02, 2009, 07:02:13 PM
Could we have a version where players herd Christians into the Circus Maximus for the lion's share of fun?
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Phantom Black on July 03, 2009, 07:40:17 AM
Did you actually ATTEND history class at school?
*shakes head*

:banghead:
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: RPGPundit on July 09, 2009, 11:44:27 PM
This isn't game design, its just Swine stupidity masquerading as pseudo-intellectualism.  Its classic Forge-attitude.

RPGPundit
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Settembrini on July 10, 2009, 10:38:02 AM
Maybe the HALO person was right, I don´t fuck about HALO. But maybe after slaughtering evreything in HALO (FPS, right?) you find out you are the evil guy?
Anyone knowledgable about HALO?
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Aos on July 10, 2009, 11:41:57 AM
It's fun to play when you're stoned with your brother-in-law at xmass time.
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Benoist on July 10, 2009, 12:54:27 PM
Quote from: Settembrini;313016Maybe the HALO person was right, I don´t fuck about HALO. But maybe after slaughtering evreything in HALO (FPS, right?) you find out you are the evil guy?
Anyone knowledgable about HALO?
Me. I'm a huge fan of the series and still play Halo 3 on XBOX Live.

Halo CE, Halo 2 and Halo 3 are FPS.

You play Master Chief, a biologically and genetically enhanced supersoldier from the Spartan II program, John 117. You defend the Earth and its Colonies from the invading alien forces of the Covenant, who are searching for artefacts (including the Halo rings, artificial worlds of sorts) that will allow them to perform the "Great Journey" - i.e. destroy all life in the galaxy and thereby committing seppuku on a cosmic scale.

At the end, John 117 doesn't die, but he doesn't quite make it either. There's nothing in the story that I find remotely comparable to the Holocaust, honestly.
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Settembrini on July 10, 2009, 01:23:12 PM
No, I wasn´t talking about the Shoa/Holocaust. I was thinking that there might be a mindfuck involved in the Story of HALO. A reversal, if you will: you think you do X, while actually you have been don -X.
So that the HALO-guy could have been on to something. Or he was indeed full of shit.
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Benoist on July 10, 2009, 01:25:22 PM
Quote from: Settembrini;313026No, I wasn´t talking about the Shoa/Holocaust. I was thinking that there might be a mindfuck involved in the Story of HALO. A reversal, if you will: you think you do X, while actually you have been don -X.
So that the HALO-guy could have been on to something. Or he was indeed full of shit.
I see what you mean.

Trust me. He was full of shit. On a cosmic level.
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: joewolz on July 10, 2009, 02:35:24 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit;312955This isn't game design, its just Swine stupidity masquerading as pseudo-intellectualism.  Its classic Forge-attitude.

I agree completely.  It is possible to use a game to teach lessons in history, and its possible to use games as learning tools for many of history's most terrible events.

From what I have seen, "Train," does not do this.  It is not an indictment of any kind: it's a game that rewards you for doing what t he Nazis did.

Nazis are the bad guys, you should never want to be one, nor ever desire to emulate them.  This is especially true when it comes to games.  One can explore Nazi motivations in a game, and even try to struggle against what it is to be human in the face of dehumanizing fascism, but making a game about loading people into cattle cars, and rewarding the players for doing it, is sick.

This "game" is not edgy, is not cool, and is not a learning experience.  Walking through one of those cars in the Holocaust Museum is a learning experience, pretending to run those trains is sick.
Title: Misery tourism comes to board games.
Post by: Jaeger on July 10, 2009, 02:48:02 PM
At this point I'm fully expecting someone to make a game modded from the Zoo Tycoon computer game engine, and call it "The Camp".