Interesting - hadn’t seen that game before. I do have “Dark Continent”, which is a pretty detailed RPG game of this sort that seems to have been an inspiration for this game.
I do feel it is hard to make a game on this period of history without glossing over the less glorious parts (Livingstone, for instance, was an idealist and firm opposer of slavery - yet depended on slave traders for support in his explorations. Stanley was infamous for his brutality, and was an agent of King Leopold).
Eh. I’m probably overthinking it. I do tend to get that way with history.
I remember that one from a few years back. There’s a locked review thread on that BGG page (with about half the posts deleted now) aith an argument about whether/how the game whitewashes or ignores the colonialist aspects. Perhaps I shouldn’t get back to this design.
From what I have seen so far Heart of Darkness is essentially a newer Source of the Nile. So, it carries all the baggage that theme brings along with it. I like exploration games and I like historical games but it is also true that European exploration opened the way for a lot of European exploitation. That’s about where I’ll leave that part of the topic as well. It may be because I am now an older guy with wacky antiquated views but I think the world is a little more nuanced than game is either ethically acceptable or reprehensible
Absolutely. I feel the real important thing is to have conversations about such dilemmas, and to be aware of how games (or other works) can occupy multiple dimensions as it were, some good, some not so good.
The only really reprehensible thing is to deny that there is more than one facet.
Yep, exactly. Odd decision to not provide options as that is pretty basic in games nowadays. Assuming must be a small developer who isnt familiar with how to scale user interfaces based on a persons display setup.
So since returning to town yesterday I’ve been digging the shit out of this. At first I thought it was little more than a series of random [bad] events, but now I’ve learned how to mitigate some of them.
In a way it reminds me of a 19th C version of PocketCiv.