The game designer Elizabeth Sampat has a new blog and its inaugural post is killer. The less I say to prepare you for it, the better. Suffice to say, it is a cutting and heartfelt look not only at Brenda Garno Brathwaite’s Síochán Leat, aka the Irish Game, but at the power and purpose of game design—and how the form can speak and provoke. Along the way, it’s a splendid introduction to Elizabeth Sampat, too.
Yes, definitely provocative.
The IRA blew up the centre of the city where I grew up. The city centre is a lot nicer looking now, but then Hiroshima has possibly the most attractive city centre in Japan.
Reflecting on this, my impression is that the games are propaganda, and underhanded propaganda at that. It’s hard to object to the message behind Train — murdering millions of Jews is wrong. The Irish Game is not at all so clear-cut: it appears to demonise a race. My race, so I don’t see it as harmless.
Thinking about it further, it makes me want to design a game where you play an Aryan-enough German in the 1930s, with a sufficiently-Aryan family, and Jewish friends. And then you get to decide what you do as the game progresses; you win if your children survive WWII, even if you, personally, don’t.
However, I don’t have the time to do that. I don’t have the time to write this. I’m supposed to be writing an email telling my new boss that his conception of my main task is fundamentally misguided. I wonder why I’m looking for a displacement activity?
Thanks for writing, David. Aside from my belief that games don’t have to stay away from serious topics, I don’t exactly have a dog in this hunt. So I can only say that I’m glad to see the Irish Game prompting talk about a subject that, at least over here, it seems to me, is not talked about much. It’s certainly not the last word or only word on the subject—it’s an essay in a different form factor.