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.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
RSS