JuniperTheory

Just some bug!!!!

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Hi i'm Junebug, the bug from online. I'm very cool and everyone who has ever met me loves me.


Are there any board games like this?

Board games are a medium I see a lot less variation on (especially commercially), and while i know a lot of TTRPGS and video games that do things like this (dog eat dog, pathologic 2) I don't know many board games that do this.

I get that this is a VERY restrictive way of describing such things, but i'm mostly trying to describe the vague vibes of games willing to ask questions about base mechanics of "enjoyability" or "fun" in the pursuit of greater themes, ideas, or art. Genuinely i'll take any recommendations like this.


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in reply to @JuniperTheory's post:

There are, but not as common these days in the big commercial game space. Stuff like Cole Wehrle’s John Company (2nd Ed) might come close for people who are willing to engage with the game. It’s a shame because there’s titles with real potential, like Carnegie, to say something about exploitation and power instead of an experience that boils down to simply, “my score is higher, I win”.
Otherwise games that are higher on the weight scale and greater complexity do a good job of simulating the anxiety that comes from having too many options and the struggle of simply doing what you can in the moment to survive (like some Vital Lacerda games).
But the ones that come most to mind for this are the more recent waves of wargames that a) offer plenty of historical context to players to better understand what they’re doing and why, and b) aren’t necessarily in it for a “good time” since the player base is more niche and they value those types of experiences more than typical tabletop game players. As an example, Votes for Women is doing something really interesting if you want to check it out.

The two-player game Watergate, wherein one plays as Nixon trying to get reelected and the other is WaPo trying to snatch up evidence about the Watergate scandal before it can covered up. It's a fairly intense emotional experience, and the power that the Nixon player has, to me, illustrates in some sense just how hard it is to swing for targets protected by institutional forces. It is also just very fun.

And I've only played it once but I think the methodical slowness of a game like Letters from Whitechapel does a lot to create a particular mood and story. It's a cat and mouse game about hunting Jack the Ripper, one player is Jack who moves invisibly across the board, and the other player(s) is moving across this board asking if Jack is there or has been there before. It's grizzly and tense.