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.
I spent a lovely couple of days in Paris and I brought this gem back for you. Actually, it was Emmanuel Guardiola from Ubisoft who mentioned it to me, so be nice to him and buy a copy of Prince of Persia :) It's a beautiful example of political game circa 1915. It's a U-Boat board game called "Unsere U-boote". According to the German Historic Museum, "This board game celebrates the victories of the German submarine fleet. On February 4, 1915, the German Reich had announced an unlimited submarine warfare to all its enemies. The German war propaganda glorified submarines as miracle weapons against the British naval force."
Here's a not-so-great picture of it, as well as the reference that I just pasted. There's not much data online that I could find in English -and my German is almost as bad as my Danish- so please let poor old Gonzalo know if there's some interesting info about it.
A Game of Throwns
Food Insofar As They Give You Food
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Royalty Rate Reset
Rocks are Rocks
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