A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now.
China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation.
The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians working to sabotage the Taiwan’s defense, as well as citizens picking up guns to defend their homeland.
Taiwanese board game maker Mizo Games started crowdfunding the game in August. Within two-and-a-half months, the company had received more than NT$4 million (US$122,261) to fund the project.
“It is not quite peaceful around Taiwan and the Western Pacific as we speak,” Mizo Games founder Chang Shao-lian (張少濂) said.
Chang said he wanted “players to feel they want to win and think about what they will do to win.”
The game, which is also to go on sale in the US and Europe later in the year, has been developed at a time when officials have intensified preparations for scenarios, including a China conflict.
Players who participated in a play test of 2045 said they learned about what might happen in the event of a Chinese invasion and that they hoped the game could help people understand the implications of a war.
“I am not very knowledgeable on military matters, therefore through this game I learned about where the army may land and launch an attack,” said Kalin Lai, a 23-year-old who tried out the game.
Mizo Games has created two other Taiwan war-themed board games — one about surviving an air raid in Taipei and the other about a bombing in Kaohsiung during Japan’s colonization of the nation between 1895 and 1945.
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