Can games work as political art? Can play be simultaneously fun and serious? Game designers have taken up these questions in recent years, creating games that attempt to capture the intellectual and emotional stakes of power relations in our world. The ambition of these games goes far beyond so-called “gamified learning.” Rather, they immerse players into serious emotions, political topics, and urgent contemporary issues by asking them to think, choose, and act within the structured space created by the game.
Beginning in May, Chandler Jennings (Artist-in-Residence) will host a series of guided playthroughs of some of these games, followed by an informal discussion, at Welcome Gallery. These games confront the complexities of climate change, speak to the pointless suffering and trauma of war, critically examine economic inequality, and even model the tension and danger of anti-authoritarian insurrections.
Each session will be different—driven by the choices and actions of the individual players—and will offer a critical and experiential look at possibilities and limitations of political games as art. How is the experience of playing a game similar or different to other art forms? Do games offer unique resources for addressing difficult questions? What are the limits of this experience?
Interested in joining Chandler for game play sessions? Fill out this form and let us know what your availability is like. We’ll be in touch to schedule a game play session.
Please note: Game play sessions will be scheduled with interested folks throughout the month of May. A session is not necessarily taking place on May 1.
About the games:
Game: In “Bloc by Bloc”, players play insurrectionist factions seeking to liberate a city from authoritarian police control. Each turn, players move their factions around the city map, disrupt police movement with barricades, clash with the cops, mark their presence with graffiti, and liberate goods to be used by the uprising. The game is semi-cooperative. Factions mostly work together against the police, but a faction can also be overtaken by vanguardist or sectarian elements that means they need to start working against other factions in order to win alone.
Estimated play time: 2-3 hours
Player count: 4
Complexity: medium
Content warning: This game deals with police violence and anti-authoritarian insurrection movements
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Game: Daybreak is a cooperative game about confronting the threat of climate change and pursuing solutions to it. Players each take on the role of a world power pursuing many different projects that help capture carbon, transition to clean energy, reduce emissions, reinforce global ecological systems, and increase community resilience. Each round, players must communicate and collaborate as they set priorities and play different "local project" cards into their personal tableau before withstanding a series of climate catastrophes. Players win if they are able to cooperate and reach carbon drawdown within a set number of rounds.
Estimated play time: 1.5 - 2 hours
Players: 2 - 8
Complexity: medium
Content note: Existential dread and existential hope related to climate change
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Game: The Grizzled is a cooperative game about the psychological and physical traumas of war. Reacting against games that glamorize war by minimizing its human toll, this game instead puts players in the position of individual foot soldiers facing the daily horrors of trench warfare on the front lines of WWI. Each round, players must share their limited resources and information in order to ensure that everyone survives that day's mission. With an effective strategy and a little bit of luck, all players might make it through the war and return home to their families.
Estimated play time: 45 minutes-1.5 hours
Players: 3-5
Complexity: medium-light
Content note: Trauma and human suffering caused by war
About Chandler: Chandler Jennings is an analog games maker, writer, and academic. During his 2024 Spring Research Residency, Chandler is refining "Justice". Part storytelling game and part interactive installation, "Justice" asks participants to theorize, build, and test a system of justice in an imaginary society (with implications for our own).
Chandler’s games try to challenge participants to explore the limits of their political imagination and consider serious issues from unexpected angles. He is particularly interested in how storytelling and imagination can translate into political agency and how these can move beyond the game-space to work towards justice in the real world. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Chandler received his BA from Pomona College in 2014 and his MA from the University of Virginia in 2023 (both in English). He is very happy to be living in Charlottesville with his wife, Michelle, and their dog, Joni.
The 2023-2024 Research Residency is made possible with support from the Anne and Gene Worrell Foundation.