{"product_id":"cardboard-ghosts-using-physical-games-to-model-and-critique-systems-9781032813448","title":"Cardboard Ghosts: Using Physical Games to Model and Critique Systems","description":"\u003cp\u003eGames can be used to model systems because they are themselves systems. Video games handle this under the hood and teach you as you play, but because board games are operated manually, and require the player to understand the system beforehand, they can be a valuable tool for recognizing, understanding, and critiquing real-world systems, including systems of oppression. These systems, often unseen and misunderstood, haunt our world. Board games turn these ghosts into pieces of cardboard we can see, touch, and manipulate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eCardboard Ghosts: Using Physical Games to Model and Critique Systems\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e explores both the capabilities and limitations of overtly political board games to model systems and make arguments. Two major approaches are considered and contrasted: one, built around immersion and identification, creates empathy. The other, applying the \u003ci\u003eVerfremdungseffekt\u003c\/i\u003e to distance the player from the game, creating space for reflection. Uncomfortable questions of player roles and complicity when modelling oppressive systems are examined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThroughout this book, board game designer Amabel Holland draws connections to computer games, literature, theatre, television, music, film, and her own life, framing board games as an achingly human art form, albeit one still growing into its full potential. Anyone interested in that potential, or in the value of political art in today's world, will find many provocative and enriching ideas within.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKey Features: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003eSurveys the history of commercial board games as a polemical and persuasive form\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eExplores games existing at the edges of the industry that push the boundaries of what games can do and be\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eGrapples with the ethical and moral considerations of simulating real-world horrors\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eProvides a case study of the author's influential game \u003ci\u003eThis Guilty Land\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eLively prose and personal anecdotes makes complicated theory digestible for a wide audience\u003c\/li\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAmabel Holland\u003c\/b\u003e is a board game designer, developer, and publisher, and in those capacities is responsible for over a hundred board games. Much of her work is experimental, concerned either with the potential of games as political art, or with the nature of games as cultural artifacts. According to the New Yorker, she is \"widely considered one of today's most innovative game designers.\" She's not so sure about that, but she'll take it. A lifelong resident of the Detroit area, in her free time she creates video essays about games and their potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"CRC Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51181852098834,"sku":"9781032813448","price":68.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_cd55244a-6759-4c7c-8954-4b3db5029b23.jpg?v=1744405773","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/cardboard-ghosts-using-physical-games-to-model-and-critique-systems-9781032813448","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}