Cardboard Ghosts

This book explores both the capabilities and limitations of overtly political board games to model systems and make arguments. 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.

Amabel Holland 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.

Acknowledgements Author Biography 01. Stories and Systems 02. Mechanical Metaphors Systems and Synthesis Little Sisters and Cellar Doors The Stones of Turncoats The Hidden Models of Computer Games System Knowledge is System Mastery Cognitive Loads Primitive Polemics 03. The Paper Time Machine History of Professional Wargaming Avalon Hill and the Birth of Commercial Wargaming Jim Dunnigan and the Paper Time Machine Mechanical Complexity in Wargames 04. Wargaming as Technique Games as Arguments Kubrick's Two Golden Eagles The Wargaming of Root Objectivity in Modeling Complicity is Required for Systemic Modeling 05. Immersion and Identity Identities Roles as Empty Avatars Roles as Opportunities for Exploration Roles in Historical Games Detail and Texture My Favorite Story 06. Agency and Viewpoint A Thing That Happens To You Pax Porfiriana and Pax Pamir Viewpoint and Horror in Meltwater Ordinary Complicity and Fancy Hats Complicity in John Company Ethical Considerations of Immersion 07. Alienation and Distance Limits of Immersion Too Close To The Gears The Verfremdungseffekt The V-Effect in Mother Courage Media Literacy Nonhierarchical Art and the Monoform Alienation in Board Games 08. This Guilty Land The Concept Modeling Civility and Compromise Modeling a Broken Legislature Distancing Players From Roles Working Against Texture Working Against Flow Emotional Texture Limits of Alienation 09. Challenges and Hopes Useful Doubts Ethical Challenges Practical Challenges Political Art is a Custard Pie The Future Index