TerrorBull Games Manifesto
Last Updated: xx7/2/2008
We live in TerrorBull times. There are a million things to do and 999,989995 of them are watching TV; playing computer games; downloading films, music, porn; chatting with virtual friends; evolving your alter-idEgo ... anything, as long as it fills the growing void of purposelessness. Everything's becoming more solitary. People are forgetting how to interact with each other. xx xxx x xxxxNo wot i meen?
OK, so an evening of Scrabble won't unite your estranged family. But how about if Scrabble involved ____----back-stabbing and cheating? Then it would give you an excuse to SSHOUT at your family, to deceive them, to winWIN, gain the upper hand, watch them XXXbegsquirm. You'll all feel better for it. And the arguments will carry on after the game is safely packed away. At least you're talking to one another now...
Terror___-Bull Games are designing a new breed of game. We tackle the nastier stuff in life. Subjects that don't have an easy "right" or "wrong". Maybe they're subjects you naturally avoid? We want people to confront those subjects, interact, discuss, fight, laugh, win, lose and then do it all again because it was so much xxxfuck fun.
Everything is a game
"You've got to be in it, to win it"
"Team meeting"
"Drop the ball"
"Level playing field"
"Team leader"
"Ballpark figure"
"Time out"
"Huddle up"
All this BULLbulishlshit sports and games-speak in the workplace, down the pub, even on the battlefield... makes you wonder why everyone takes things so seriously.
So this is ________rule no.1 at TerrorBull Games: everything's game. World politics, environmental catastrophe, life and death... IT's all fun. It's all fair game. Why should anything be excluded from a game? Are some subjects so hallowed that we can only discuss them in hushed, respectful tones? We don't believe so. Being 'hushed' represses opinion, supresses discussion, interaction, shouting, anger, laughing. Natural human responses.
Here's _________rule no.6 (rules 2-5 are concerned with TBG office dress code): If you're expected to have a certain opinion purely because everyone else holds this opinion, it's probably ____wrong - or at least worth ques?tioning. Worth talking about. Worth making a game about it. Pull it apart. Laugh at nonsense. Make it fun.
Just because the xxxmadMajority of people believe something to be true, doesn't mean it's right. People are insane. They're illogical. Unpredictable. Why believe many insAne people but not one? That's just ... insane.
Satire was funny once
What happened to our venerated tradition of satire?....Swift, Johnson, Pope, Dryden, Gillray, Hogarth... but for modern satire, it could be said it's a different story. People are afraid and X**kXXXwanking sick of politics. So making fun of political matters is at best, ////////::TerrorBull terribly dull and at worst, trying too HArd - a big *faus pas* in a society where everyone likes to pretend they're not trying at all.
__________Rule no.18 - satire is in. Eating Irish babies. Terrorism. Whatever. If it makes you laugh and THINKthink at the same time, it's going to be a good game. If it upsets you, even better. Sometimes you can't imagine a different way of looking at things until you've had a shock. Ask any car crash survivor how they felt about driving before and after the crash.
Above all, however, it's funny and healthy to poke fun. Try it sometime.
Games are only fun if you can lose
Everyone wants to win, true. But everyone wants *not to lose* more. There needs to be more at stake by L0sing than there is to gain by winning. The driving force is negative. Losing makes people nervous and when they're nervous they're liable to do something xxxxevil stupid. ANd that's when you make your move.
You'll be a better player as soon as you get used to the ---xxxfac idea of losing. Come to terms with failure. Seneca said "Great men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war". Be great and brave. Remember it's all a game. And if you're going to go out, do it in XXX-Xstyle a blaze of glory...
And if you win? Avoid the lap of honour (xxx xXXXnot cool). It's a rare great feeling - better than catching the mouse in Mousetrap -But be calm; your next failure is just around the corner.
Sometimes a game beats you. We're no nannies. We can't guarantee that you'll finish every one of our games every time you play them. But we can guarantee you'll have fun trying.
=3 (Three) players and up
Games are fun when you can lie. That takes two. Games are more evilfun when you can gang up on other players. When you can bargain, haggle, swap and trade - that takes three. There's a natural _---____conflict with three. We believe the best games involve more than two people. That doesn't mean we don't make two-player games, we just like the 'aggrxo' generated by a group.
Essentially, boardgames are fun because they involve real interaction with real people in real space and time.
__________Rule no.45: Games should xxxxevol change depending on who plays them. Players should define and characterise the game they're playing. Playing a game can be as creative as making one. In fact, we hope our games will be in constant development in every holehome that owns one.
REMeMBER: cheating is -----xxxxxwrong creative! Also, there are no rules.
(TBG doesn't do video games XXXyet.)