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Buy Democracy the Board Game on the Amnesty International website and contribute to their work on challenging human rights violations.

Buy Democracy the Board Game on the New Internationalist website

Never doubt that a small group of citizens can change the world.

Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

History of the Game

 

Its Sunday morning early in January 2008, we have just come through another Christmas where that dreaded game (you know the one, greed is good, extortionate rents etc) has raised its ugly head yet again, and we’re having a conversation about Naomi Kline’s Shock Doctrine over breakfast. 

 

A great book we agree, like a few others which expose the myth of exporting western Democracy through the free market. 

 

 

 

How, we wondered, can these ideas make it into wider society?  We make the link between globalisation and that dreaded game… yes, a bit obvious we know, but sometimes the things hidden in plain sight are the hardest to see.  We have played that dreaded game ourselves with our children and grandchildren without really thinking about the messages they were getting.

 

Why are there no games that popularise and reinforce ideas like social justice, human rights and caring about the planet?  More rhetorical and indignant than a question really.

 

Surely, we think to ourselves, a couple of well read, politically minded people like ourselves can come up with an alternative.  So just for the craic we set about it, jotting down our ideas:  what would the content be, what would it look like, how would it work. 

 

It was another six months, a couple of home made prototypes and lots of encouragement from our friends before we started to take the whole thing seriously.

 

After two years of testing, making changes and retesting, we got there.  We felt we had a game that was good fun to play, and had some good underlying social messages to counter the greed is good culture of more traditional games.

 

Ok then, we think we have a good game, so now what?  How do we get it from the kitchen table to the shops?  And where do we get the funding to do it?  Well one small step at a time is the answer, a heck of a lot of our own hard earned cash, and some crucial support from the Kerry County Enterprise Board in the development stage.

 

Finally, after many false dawns and postponed deadlines, Democracy the Board Game was launched in September 2010.  In a few short weeks we sold our advance copies of the game and were getting positive attention in local and national media. (Click here to LISTEN to Democracy featuring on Newstalk’s Tom Dunne Show) In the two months before Christmas 2010 the orders came flooding in, eating into the second delivery of games. 

 

Our aim is to have Democracy the Board Game sitting on the shelf beside that dreaded game in every shop across the globe, so that at the very least, there will be an alternative.

 

Order your copy now, and be one of the first people you know to own Democracy the Board Game !