Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - Destroy Zimbabwe in Simbabwe 1.0

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Water Cooler Games

Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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Destroy Zimbabwe in Simbabwe 1.0

by Ian Bogost September 2, 2005

categories: Political Games

Simbabwe 1.0 is a satirical commentary on contemporary politics in Zimbabwe by Australian developers The Daily Grind. The developers call the game, available only on Mac OS X, a "strategic board game." Players take the role of Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Rhodesian Front bigwigs. The player competes to seize property and rise to power through nepotism and oppression.

Welcome to Simbabwe, where the property is already owned and the houses built and you compete to burn and dispossess them. Bounce around the map plundering farms, denying grain silos to opposition supporters and robbing the community chest.

I'm normally cynical about videogames that remediate board-games, but here the developers are using the Monopoly-style board game as a lever for their satire, relying on and overturning our expectations in that environment (we rob the community chest instead of obtaining general benefit from it). In case you forgot, The Daily Grind are the folks who also brought us Kimdom Come and Detox, equally satirical social commentaries.

Comments (6)

At what point does satire become cynicism? The line between them can be extremely fine, one very dependent upon perspective. But it's an important distinction...

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here - Political Games, Walking A Fine Line on September 3, 2005 4:47 PM

Strangely enough, the short comments thread of a recent post here compels me to link my father's new blog, 121contact (as in, one-to-one).

Walkerings - Off-Topic (But Only Slightly) on September 4, 2005 3:01 PM

Destroy Zimbabwe in Simbabwe 1.0:Destroy Zimbabwe by seizing property in this "strategic" boardgame for the Mac. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4202354.stm:People looking to make video games are not tapping into government funds, a conference on...

Gaming - Blogs Digest on September 5, 2005 9:06 PM

This game is negative and perpetuates the centuries old belief that Africans arenot capable of self governance. I think the developers should creat a game that demostarate the systematic suppression of the native people of Australia and their culture through racist policies. Shame on you.

at on October 14, 2005 3:23 AM

This game is mushi shamwari.

My gaden boy finias and me had a great time playing.

It was lacker.

I am not understanding why him above is so upset; shame on you for not making a PC version!

Flame on March 28, 2006 1:25 PM

Have you ever considered that the reason why there is a centuries' old belief that Africans are not capable of self governance, is because no african country has successfully achieved self-governance?

April on October 17, 2006 3:57 PM