Many people equate games with “fun.” Brenda Brathwaite, game designer and Chair of the Interactive Design and Game Development department at SCAD, equates games with interactive experience and education.
Her newest board game design is “Train,” is more of a somber treatise than a traditional game. Through the course of play, Train leads players on a journey allegorical of Jews being transported to Auschwitz. By the way the rules are written, however, players often don’t realize the breadth of each decision and the consequence of each move forward until the end. With the gravity of the topic it touches, Train does more than introduce players to a poignant topic in world history, it redefines the scope of board games in general.
Train debuted at the Games for Change conference in New York City last month. The board is comprised of three train tracks astride a broken window, representative of Kristallnacht, when the Nazi’s smashed the windows of Jewish homes. The three train tracks are the point of play, and players are loaded into the trains and then moved to an unknown destination via command cards.
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