John Company: The Colossal Game of Colonialist Greed

John company second edition is in my opinion not one shared with the rest of Team sh it down mind a great work of art the reactions to it around my table are some of the most immediate and Powerful that I have ever seen any game produce it is a nuclear payload of feeling that is more explosive and unique than 99% of the games that pass through my shelves as a game it is a head mix of fiery negotiation hard strategy and soft roleplaying that make it one of my new favorites on the flip side around 50% of the people who I played this game with said they never wanted to play it again one person said it was disgusting and even I recommend that you don't buy it due to its ferocious rules overhead prohibitive cost and mechanical an thematic stickiness this company ain't going to John itself less Boogie so this is John company second edition a 2022 remaster of sorts to Brothers Cole and Drew Worley's 2017 game of the same name now if you've been around in modern Hobby board games for any length of time then one of those designers will certainly ring a bell for you Cole's breakout success route places him somewhere on many folks's Mount Rushmore of modern designers and his more divisive follow-up oath is in the running for my favorite game of all time notably however both of these games harsher realities on the nature of factionalism and historiography respectively were softened in later games is publishing lavishly cified through the artwork of Kyle ferin for the freak Cole and Drew team up together to publish under worldly gig games the source of the much lorded second edition of Pack's Premiere check out no pun included spot on review for more of that and now followed by John company second edition I've not played the original John company and wow help it looks like a panic attack in Excel a board game made for a history assignment by the kid who likes Victoria 3 at little bit too much but this second edition is a refinement and reimagining of that original design I'm reliably told that the change is night and day creating a game that is more of an exhaustive exploration of its Central themes and also less of an ordeal to look at but what the heck is this [Music] game let's get the uncomfortable big picture out of the way first John company is a game where between one and six players will take on the roles of wealthy families starting running and profiteering from the East India Trading Company the state-backed organization variously responsible for almost half of all global trade during the peak of its operation a company military larger than that of most Nations at the time the birth of the British Empire and mass colonial rule overseeing a famine that killed an estimated one-third of Bengal several opioid addiction outbreaks and their subsequent Wars across China and a spectacular crash in the 1820s despite multiple government bailouts these people were responsible for one of the most disgusting Enterprises to ever touch the planet and this game asks you to spend between 3 and 5 hours of your life playing as them you can see why there's a warning on the front cover of the manual you can see why it's a big ask to get your friends to sit down to it and you can see why this is going to be a long review so let's put a shape to this game what do you do in a round of John company John company is at its heart a negotiation game strapped to an economic game which in turn is strapped to a gambling game players will be making deals doing trades and rolling dice to try and acrw the most points by the time the game closes differently to a lot of negotiation or economic games however is the fact that players do not run their own individual Enterprises to make individual money instead they collectively pilot just one organization the titler John company itself that players only control individual limbs of at any given time in real terms the setup might look like this you might be the chairman and the director of military Affairs sure but the player to your left is the manager of shipping and to their left is the director of trade all of whom might need convincing to do their job in a direction that helps you or indeed the company itself see not only does the game present wildly asymmetric setups in regard to how big a slice of the company each individual player has at the starting line causing differing investments in its success but that investment can change over time as board members retire from their positions sell their shares or unceremoniously fired foring up their job playing fast and loose with company money this can lead to game states where everyone's slices are relatively equal turning the experience into an almost Cooperative one with minor profiteering and scheming on the fringes but it just as easily leads to game states that are tonally similar to a single cold hot dog being thrown to a pack of hungry rats a crab bucket of sinking ship mentality where everyone wants to get out having lost the least as the Company Burns around them milking the last scrap of power that they've got left most games sit somewhere in between a shifting board of directors and variable turn-by-turn Revenue making the game into a spiderweb of player politics where everyone is just trying to get members of their family into the hiring line at the exact right moment to make their money and retire before things go south these games are the table tabletop equivalent of basically every episode of succession but where every single character is Tom WS scans I can't I can't reveal my sources uh but it's correct so that's the basic pitch and with that out of the way we can now get into the exhaustive process of explaining how the roughly 17st step rounds of this game actually work if you feel as though you don't need to know the ins and outs of this then here's a timestamp but before you click away some practical words on how the teach is actually implemented into the game John company's second edition is maybe the only game that I have played where it has a rolling teach that actually works that actually suits the kind of game that it is for those unfamiliar with the term a rolling teach is a method of rules explanation where one player learns all the rules upfront and then after a brief introduction just starts the game no upfront teaching whatsoever players will have almost no idea of what they're doing strategically as the concepts of the game are explained to them in real time as and when they are needed but they'll quickly click into how a round operates and are comforted by how the individual actions are not all that difficult there's just a lot of them most players will have their hands held through a bumpy first round but be ready to take the training wheels off by the second and then tearing each other to non-negotiable Pieces by the third which is kind of outstanding for a game that is this mechanically complex and unusual ual in fact I'd compare the experience of teaching John company for the first time to be that of dming a role-playing game a connection that's alluded to in the introduction sheet in the Box you take such an active role in teaching and running things that it leads to an entirely different satisfaction and joy but it's a prospect that you should be aware of before even considering buying this box and this is where I'll give my buyers advice something that I will rarely do throughout the rest of this video not only must must you have a group in mind before dropping $120 on this thing or $150 if you spring for the deluxe metal coins which in a rare move from us I do actually recommend not only do you need to have that group in mind but you also need to make peace with being the John company guy being the one who enjoys the spotlight being the one who is going to teach a board game to a cluster of people for upwards of an hour with constant questioning afterwards that's also a mark against the rolling teach it's necessity in getting this thing to the table means that it's quite hard to bring a new player into your circle once you already know the rules the rest of your table isn't going to want to sit for about an hour while just one person learns the ropes dare I say that this game is actually less complex than its BG rating of 4.43 out of five suggests yes yes I dare I dare very much but I implore you to be realistic about the kinds of groups you have access to before making this game another another aspirational purchase that will sit unplayed on your shelf Gathering dust for months it is exactly that for me already and it's been part of my job to play this game for the past like 6 months of my life if you are pressing on anyway and are going to be that person who teaches John company then a great way to learn is the Fantastic video from rtfm Shay goes into great detail for the player who needs to be the one holding the rules in their head robust complete easy to follow a fantastic resource for wouldbe colonizer such as yourselves I thoroughly thoroughly recommend it all right that's it admin done you've been trying to put off teaching them the game haven't you no I think you have I've got to teach it now listen buddy you've got to teach them at some point maybe now's the time can I make it a bit smaller no no it's a big old game you just got to put the whole thing in there really yeah oh no oh it's going to be so boring oh they know that they clicked on the video it it'll be fine it'll be fine oh no all right let's go uh this is an Abridged teach if John company second edition designed to give you the basic flavor of what's going on here but missing out on loads of details this teach might still be too much for some folks but I wanted to keep it in here so we can give us sort of thematic grounding of what we're talking about later on plus I think some of the rules are just really cool the basic game is played for five rounds and each round proceeds by following this red ribbon along the edge to the board stopping off at each individual step along the way broadly we can split this ribbon into three sections your family acts the company acts and the world acts let's start with those company actions first as this silver marker hits the spaces along the Red Ribbon the corresponding family member takes the action depicted the chairman can seek debt and then must slop out company funds to its individual departments the exact often unequal division motivated by where they've got other employes employes or by a sleep bribe from a fellow investor the director of trade follows them they can move ships between SE zones and writers between presidencies as well as opening up orders in India these oval spaces littering the map on the right side of the board these orders represent deals the company can make to bring in profit and let trade flow but we'll get back to those in just a little bit the manager of shipping buys those ships in the first place each one placed in the sea allowing the company to fill exactly one of the orders opened earlier military Affairs follows them they're the person in charge of assigning new recruits to the Army boxes up here the presidency's however where the company actually does its thing each president can trade with their regions Associated orders placing these writers from the writers box on each order filled making the company that amount of money with them getting a little bit of Kickback in return the other part of the president's turn belongs to the Commander in their corresponding military box they want to essentially wage war against the various fractured empires of India if they succeed in their Conquest the Empire recedes from that area of the board and its orders open for trade with all troops involved taking a cut of what the game refers to as loot after any casualties are resolved then a new position the governor is established a highly lucrative but risky role for the character choosing to fill it allowing for further business to be conducted at the cost of stirring unrest in the region they govern but how does any of that at happen well here it might be pertinent to explain the dice system that powers most of JN company and this mechanic is something fierce almost all of the actions in Jung company require you to roll a pool of dice spending one pound of each dice you want to add to the pool5 spent five dice rolled with some external modifiers changing the number of dice you'll actually get to roll after spending your money you then roll that fistful and look for the lowest value amongst the lot if a one or a two is your lowest role then congratulations you succeeded that's the best possible outcome a three or a four means that you failed but you can spend money to roll the dice again maybe a little fewer this time making things riskier a five or a six is the worst it's a catastrophic failure meaning not only do you fail the roll with no chance to roll again but you're also immediately fired from your position I love these dice I think balancing all of JN company on the knife edge of a push your luck gambling game is an inspired Choice players are Keen to keep money in their treasuries so they'll spend risky amounts on rolls safe in the knowledge that they'll probably be able to just spend a squirt more cash and roll again and not really think about what happens if they can't the dice like many other mechanics in this box introduce chaos and risk into proceedings that gradually go players into the profiteers mindset but we'll talk more about the dice a little later on so that's the company operating but what happens afterwards this block of steps right at the end is where the company has stuff happen to it the bonuses and revenue steps are administrative phases where the company works out how much money it's made and can carry into the next round after paying for its military ships debts and snacks company standing the abstract measure of how healthy your Empire is at any given time might raise or lower in this step depending on if you pay out dividends to investors at1 per company share but will decrease if it made less money than folks expected it to and if standing sinks low enough during the game the company fails and the game ends prematurely another way that company standing can falter is during the events in India step where India itself pushes back against company rule events are randomly drawn from a deck and have a variety of possible effects from profitable windfalls to strengthening pieces to order closing turmoils most notable is the crisis event though when resolving one of these the simmering tensions within the fractured empires of India finally spills out into actual violence sometimes this violence occurs between India's regions causing them to band together or fall apart in and out of uneasy Empire more often though this elephant representing those Rising tensions we pointed directly into a region controlled by the company and if the company lacks a military to defend itself with in there then that region will be lost writers will be killed orders will be closed and Company standing will tank a sliver of chaos injected into an already dysfunctional economic system the round then closes with the parliament meet Step where the player who is the prime minister the owner of this absurd component then gets to make laws that affect the rules for the rest of the game these have broad effects like reducing the cost of ship building or slashing the price of the military or just getting rid of all of the company's debt and players will use Enterprises with this little symbol on them to vote for or against and if players are out of legitimate Enterprises to vote with they can just spend money instead one per vote lastly we limp into the final set of actions that kick off the start of the round that I described as the family actions these are the maneuvering steps that get you into position to make your big plays for the rest of the round the London season is where maybe the the most important part of the game happens players roll dice for each family member under their employee to see whether they retire one of the few ways to get points in the game this works the same as most of the dice rolls one or two does nothing three or four adds attrition which then compounds to add to later roles and a five or a six retires that family member for good if your family member retires it is at this point and this point only that you can spend money from your personal treasury to put them in one of these exciting Scottish re retirement castles a more lavish retirement earning you more points but costing you more money both now and every turn for the rest of the game okay final stretch here family is where players get to take the personal actions that set them up for the rest of the round things like buying shares or shipyards or workshops or luxuries assets they can use later on this is also where New Blood gets injected into the company in the form of new officers or writers to go to the various presidencies hiring is the very last step any roles retired or fired now need to be filled with each card listing who chooses the successor and from who they might hire from goodness gracious I have skipped out on so many rules in that and have barely scratched the surface of all of the complexities of this game it might seem wildly difficult or actually pretty simple to you depending on who you are and what kind of games you play but every single phase of this game is more complex than I've made it sound lacered with bribery negotiation and trickery getting things done in this game is not easy let's talk about why so what does a round of John company really look like I've laid out the rules sure but I've not explained the motion the feeling the kinds of directions this game takes you in so let's talk about the kinds of weeds you can get into through the lens of a game of John company that I actually played we've got four families here pink yellow blue and green they've got proper names but we'll keep things colorful we're at the start of the fourth round of the game just past the halfway point of our performance and tensions are starting to rise inside the business yellow's chairman has a very high chance of retiring next round which means there's positively gallons of blood in the water and folks have already started making risky beds to Li in by retiring early after a few turns of profit with little eye to securing the company's future at this point in the game our players are in the following mindsets yellow is trying to squeeze the last few drops of cash out of the chairman while they still can hoping to enjoy a lavish retirement afterwards playing balls for eternity green is eyeing up that seat hoping to LEAP into it once it's vacated while it's still warm ushering the company into a new era of profitability with them at the helm blue doesn't have a strong company position but they do have those military assets they're hoping to use those to claim a bunch of prizes to pay for some stuff back home and lastly we've got pink with little actual stake in the company they're just quietly Shoring up an anti company position we start with a family phase green snatches a share yellow pops a writer in Bengal to capitalize on the president going free blue ships more of their kids to the military and pink buys another set of heinously expensive workshops to gamble on the company failing yellow then pays an extortionate bribe to Pink in the hiring phase for the privilege of becoming the new president of Bengal over the other C candidate leveraging the role of chairman to distribute this round's budget with a heavy waiting towards the presidency they've just taken ownership of the rest of the Departments get the scraps sewing seeds of dissent among the board the pink director of trade then acts and having already extorted yellow for most of their cash it only takes a suggestion of a bribe from green to throw their plans further into disarray popping open a new order in Madras and shuffling two of the ships previously routed to Bengal into mad's sea zone the balance of trade completely swinging out from under blue and yellow and into the loving arms of green and pink a complete reversal of Fortune in such a small space of time pink then extends a small Olive Branch to yellow and blue by using their military Affairs position to send blue officers into the Bombay Army box it's where they want to be ready to campaign in order to expand the company's influence and take home their rightful share of the loot this then immediately results in Blue's actions as commander in Bombay where casual ually looking at their retirement homes extortion at 4 pound per turn upkeep exhausts their own officers to Stamp Out native resistance in the region taking home just a few trinkets to put on the mantle piece thing is they decide to cut yellow out of the equation last minute in order to take home a greater share of the profits yellow is fuming at their supposed business partner for being the second person to double cross them this round and so sells their votes to Pink the current prime minister in return for Blue's 2 promise notes that pink had save for a rainy day they gladly accept the opportunity for further chaos blue understanding that pink will probably do something heinous with the votes if left to their own devices buys their votes back off of green their Spoils of War looking positively poultry now they've been nibbled Away by their Partners green is then pleased with a good turn of trading in Madras making the fact that the company didn't really do any military actions there sting just a little less yellow on the other hand is desperate for a big trade this time turn they're flat broke and need to have enough money in their coffers to pay for the Chairman's imminent retirement due still frustrated at the lack of ships for a big turn of trading in Bengal they turn to their governor green they ask them to use their powers to construct a company ship and green isn't so sure building a ship requires two successful roles of the dice on a dice pool that is sufficiently small that failure or catastrophic failure resulting in their firing is a distinct possibility so yellow desperate to secure some money rbes them with a share making green first in line to be the next chairman after yellow retires green wearily accepts pushing the local populace into the shipyards causing murmurs of unrest in the process yellow elated rolls a chunky pool of dice and successfully pulls a good amount of cash in for both the company and themselves their writers securing all manner of exports and that retirement due becoming an inevitability with presidencies now resolved hope around the table is high despite Pink's tampering everyone seems to have gained all that they were after but hubris rears its head any hopes of a profitable company are immediately crushed in the event step a storm in the East trashes multiple ships and a crisis in Bengal kills writers and seals off the whole region for further trading what's worse it's time for Parliament to meet and oopsy dupsy it's war with France an event that will not only weaken the company's already ailing Fleet and desperate military but also require window to fund it making Blue's current retirement plans completely unaffordable blue desperately promises their trophies of water pink so as to not enact the law but pink is undeterred renegotiating with blue to take the trophies off their hands for just enough money to pay for the upkeep and no more using both their own Enterprises and cashing in the promis note from yellow earlier to pass a law that both yellow and blue absolutely detest the military is gutted and the fleet decimated every border member round the table fuming as the company standing slides into the bin still despite their Misfortune yellow and blue do manage to make it to the end of the round with enough cash to secure that juicy retirement all they need to do is roll the dice that will surely spell yellow vacating that position oh oh no oh A1 was the only possible role that would mean that yellow does not retire for this round and yet here they are stuck for another tor ous year of this game feet perfectly encased in a rock solid block of shareholders concrete green is a ghast that they do not take control of the company but also maybe a bit thankful given its position the family actions roll round again and pink buys another Fleet of Workshops the shareholders scramble to get boats back on the ocean to pull the company from the gutter before it's all over there is John company at its best a multiple hour board meeting that evolves and breathes with player input frothing with drama hubris and thematic tension as swings of Fate Forge desperate deals and risky roles each player Loosely bound together by the company you are simultaneously cooperatively both floating and sinking this is a negotiation game unlike anything else on the market wheels within Wheels within wheel wheels so many layered systems to bribe with extort with shark with everything being tradable all of the time presents a Sandbox that is just so fluid with players engaging with it in all kinds of eclectic surprising and unusual ways not a single player has engaged with this puzzle in the same way in the same game let alone across different games each and every session spilling out its own Fable of colonialist greed but it's those dice at the core of it all that tip the hand as to what John company is what presents to the eye in its fundamental beess as a Steady As She Goes economic Euro game where the right decisions lead to predictable outcomes rapidly shape shifts in the mind of the player into one where twists come thick and fast building out a game where you're constantly just trying to make the best from whatever situation is thrown at you I spoke about how the dice make your actions in to a push your luck game and that's true but riskmanagement is in reality flecked through every single interaction in the game in politics in retirements in the seas and events of India making not just an endlessly compelling game but also a focused sazed slice of real world history it says so right on the front of the manual you are not people explicitly trying to make the East India Company the most profitable it can be you are ambitious families attempting to use the British East India Company for personal gain here's an observation that I will explain clumsily the negotiation of this game the constant bickering to get even the most basic things done it creates intensely FRC of relationships between players when your ships sit unmanned it hurts when you get passed up for promotion it stings when your department doesn't get money and you do nothing on your turn because of it the frustration easily spills out of the distraction of the game and into very real very personal discomfort all of these real human feelings bubble into Times where you feel as though you ought to actively mismanage the company you're running so as to explicitly bite back at your colleagues hurting the feelings of your fellow investors even when being responsible with your role might in reality make you more money if there's even a slim chance that not Towing the line will disrupt the plans of those who previously wronged you you you will take it and there it really is a game where players who are frustrated that they are not making the embarrassment of riches they expected will abuse the power of the most Insidious Corporation in the world the very visible point system here does wonders to Stope the fires of this feeling it is simply not enough that you succeed in your most ambitious plundering of India it is that your peers must fail this is when John company's fundamental satire is at its most poignant and direct its humor akin to that of a Henry Fielding novel or Ben Johnson play directly threading together these two different worlds the landed gentry and their bougeoir squabbling directly connected to the consuming horrors of Empire this is where the game attains its most lofty thematic goals of representing imagined Empire where its ludic thesis on Greed and its dehumanizing influence oozes from every sworded action of the players round the table here it's where the game reveals the people behind this business not how they would choose to be remembered as revered exalted Barons of industry but how they should be remembered gluttonous incompetent opportunistic and barbaric I'm standing outside of PS Castle in Wales not just a spectacular backdrop for this video not just a beautiful castle that wouldn't look out of place down the left hand side of John company's board but home to the Clive collection the largest private collection of looted Indian artifacts in the UK so who is this Clive well Robert Clive or Clive of India as he's best known has been many things a schoolyard bully a ruthless colonialist a Titan of industry and eventually Lord vulture one of the most hated men in the country but he was mostly one thing and one one thing only unfathomably Rich at the start of this video I mentioned that the East India Company was responsible for killing an estimated onethird of the population of Bengal and if there is one person that history squarely blames for this fact it's Robert Clive he ruthlessly exploited the territory he was charged with requisitioning land that was primarily used for farming to instead grow and Export opium and when poor harvests created a scarcity of food there was backup plan why would there be he much like the rest of the East India Trading Company was only there for big profits now we weren't allowed to film inside of the museum at Palace Castle photography is prohibited due to the private nature of the collection so all we've got here is what I recorded before becoming aware that photography wasn't cool but when you walk around its Halls John company becomes painfully real When You observe firsthand the wealth and opulence this terrible business created and stole the horror of what you just played Dawns on you it becomes tangible and it becomes terrifying I said right at the head of this video that about 50% of the people I played this game with never wanted to play it again and for a large chunk of those people that reason was the setting not the theme folks who I played this game with were made dramatically uncomfortable because the setting reduces a gaping historical wound into game one that you gladly participate in likely laughing your way through people making bad business decisions and getting skewered by their own greed its satire is focused around that greed and the people it affected are pushed to the sidelines to many many people this game uses horror as its playground it Revels in a period of History so monstrously evil that to even represent it is an act of violence no matter its intentions it cannot escape the gravity gra it of that Terror to put that into a game into a commercial product bought and sold ostensibly for entertainment is for plenty of folks too vile to stomach and affront to marginalized populations where the lingering effects of colonial rule are felt profoundly I would not argue with anyone for which the conversation begins and ends right there now of course there are folks in the comments of various places who are going to be saying things like who cares about the backdrop for a game who cares about it them it's just a game they're just for escapism please I need my escapism stop bringing politics into my games um well firstly if you are one of those people it's hilarious that this game would produce those sentiments something so directly concerned with its politics something running with this setting of all settings something designed by these people of all people I am frequently both bemused and sickened by conversations where people assume engaging with theme and setting is somehow insulting to the designer or secondary to the conversation is it not somehow more insulting to disregard entirely whole SES of work that pertain to A Game's theme and setting more disrespectful to turn Rich creative works of player-driven art into just games if you are one of those people then but also ha you just got tricked John company's whole construction is designed to draw the connection between the game you are playing and the game they were playing it's how the satire operates the detached perspective is part of the mission statement this is familiar territory for wh gig Pack's Premier second edition takes place in a period of History known as the great game where various Empires used Afghanistan as their playground for various international disputes where the local population were exploited by and themselves exploited that political climate it was just a game to them as it is to you applying this perspective to John company we see a game that spreadsheets genocide because the East India Company did exactly that turning land into a resource and people into probabilities gambling on very real generational damage just to turn a profit it was just a game to them as it now is to you and this line of thinking creeps into another argument that John company isn't the conversation in and of itself it's the start of an inquest a Reckoning with yourself where your reaction is part of the art I think a lot about this cartoon from ad Reinhardt where a silly little man asks a painting a question what does it represent the painting then claps back with the Fantastic what do you represent and a caption at the bottom reads an abstract painting will react to you if you react to it you get from it what you bring to it it will meet you halfway but no further it is alive if you are it represents something and so do you you sir are a space too also the guy at the bottom of the cartoon is dead for some reason my head Cannon is that he got owned so hard by the painting that he cringed to death he got dumpstered clown I think this is a great way to look at an awful lot of Modern Art especially work that is violent or destructive or obscene here your interpretation is the art your opinion is the art the way it sticks in your mind is the art as much as the painting or sculpture or banana taped to a wall but unlike most modern art JN company asks more of you than merely observing it asks for your participation if this game is Art it is not gica it is not the face of War it is not Le disaster as deera it ising hell a vois and direct piece that you're surrounded by and immersed in where your engagement creates complicity a work that can just as easily be totally disengaged with as completely enthralled by but will repel anyone just a little bit no matter how you slice it this perspective can turn JN company into something of a challenging chunk of group performance arts a game that creates similar feelings of unease as train or meltwater but come and advocate for the Devil with me for for a little bit Puerto Rico is a commonly cited example of the problem with colonialism in board games you take Brown worker discs from trade ships to work your fields that produce well they produce what you'd expect them to produce but if you so Dar you could apply the same logic here there is a Detachment from PTO Rico that has you playing the game as an observer playing a game as they played a game you view these people in the same way that plantation owners did and there the game acts as a statement to re iterate I'm playing devil's advocate here Puerto Rico just isn't doing that and Jung company has both suggestions for further reading and asks its players to consent to its exploration before playing typical colonialist games will just take your consent as given as they suddenly throw slavery upon you they carelessly Chuck human cargo into the mix because they didn't think about the implications of playing through that situation and they don't want you to either John company at least asks for permission to explore which is 99.9% more work than other games will do it is evidently engaging with its theme on a very serious and direct level the historical background of the design team touching every inch of the cardboard that's in front of you allowing Jung company far more freedom to explore the morally gray territory it's confronting you with this game is clearly thinking a lot about its setting and it wants you to do so as well but I do think that perhaps John company's own internal logic only applies if you bless it with intentionality intentionality suggested by its preface but only truly gleaned from knowing or more likely trusting where the design is coming from and remember both John company and pax's Premiere now have second editions from worlded games that very much feel like more rounded versions of their original Publications from Sierra Madre games the Publishing House from Phil Eckland that would shoehorn in some uh quite questionable writing awful these second editions feel like reclamations of the politics of the first more to outwardly promote more realistic versions of History this context is enlightening in pinpointing the direction of the game you are sat down playing but the problem here is that to many folks I played with the design alone did not do the heavy lifting here on first blush to cement The Narrative perspective and intentions of the game when people sat down to Jung company I warned them that it was an exploration they needed to consent to but other than that I let the game do the talking and almost all of the folks I played with felt a bit grossed out by the game and its theme regardless of disclaimers or intentions they did not knowingly approach it as a space they approached it as a game making them actors in a more intelligent exhibition sure but frustrated angry upset or unknowing participants I think this is my main concern and the concern of a circle of players around me that John Company is almost the right game at the wrong time a critique arriving in a time where board gamers are either inherently distrusting of such themes due to a Long and Lasting Legacy of deeply problematic table games or they don't care either way rendering those political goals inert as players are fundamentally incurious of continuing to investigate the subject matter the game is portraying look there is of course no shortage of intelligent Barbed satire in the design here take for example the word loot referring to money gained in military campaigns on first blush it's a word that betrays the savagery of the colonialist mindset spoils or treasure or rewards are words that practically describe describe the thing itself but loot is chosen there is no nobility in the word loot it is a nasty word for a nasty business but there's a second layer lot's atmology stems from lutner a Sanskrit word to describe get this stealing there is a withering and dark irony for this word being used in this context a stolen word for stolen wealth genius but I was only made aware of this connection by reading and listening to the work of William D who I would thoroughly recommend his work is just great and really good if you want to get more of a perspective on this subject matter I used a ton of his stuff for this video you can probably tell if you've listened or read any of it for many the conversation will start and end with the one time they played it and this layer will remain untapped Quinns brought up similar concerns upon seeing the sepoy recruitment card in the game looking around the table to find the Gaze of at least one person who knew the historical context of what the card was referring to but no it bounced straight off our brains at the time rendering its political context and satire inert through our Collective ignorance I think that JN company struggles because its mission statement is to inhabit imagined Empire a clever but detached Viewpoint that gives a wonky first impression reliant on authorial Intervention in a way JN company is in itself a genius move to subvert the it's just a game narrative as utterance of that statement means you are complicit in showing the power of turning people into cubes and violence into dice but for some people it's still just too toxic a subject matter to comfortably play in it's satire hamstrung by the culture of board games it currently exists in now there's probably folks who have switched off this video by now because a they're bored it's a long video I know I'm sorry or B because they're outraged by a contradiction how come we've given so much time to talking about John company's theme and yet we'll gladly play in the sandbox of a game game like say undaunted a game about the second world war where one player gets to have a fun go at being a Nazi that game has no warning no permission slip no suggestions for further reading on the back of the manual why is that okay to me there's a whole bunch of reasons direct conflict versus colonialism the difference in abstraction the fact that maybe it actually isn't okay and we need to examine our own biases predicated on understandings of the good War these are beyond the scope of this video but there is a big one that I want to dwell on JN company hits different as the kids say if you're British I mostly played this game with Brits and it's that group for whom the box was most grim and a huge factor in that is simply because education on the matter is still so poor and the cultural climate in the UK seeks to be ever more revisionist around the British Empire British politicians in the 2020s seem ever more empowered to make huge sweeping statements about Britain's Colonial past it only takes a cursory Google search to find several visible sources showing Jacob rmog and sella bravman currently sitting MPS declaring loudly and publicly that they are proud of the British Empire not proud to be British or other such tacit dog whistles but proud of Empire specifically we are in a culture currently in which the wrongdoing committed by these actors is continually swept under the rug diminished and in many circles valorized it's perhaps not fair to Jung company we're being presented with this game at a time where sensible people are on high alert for games that leave Empire up to interpretation because of how far the Overton window on was colonialism bad has seemingly shifted the second result that comes up if you Google around for the Clive collection it comes from a hilariously Rosy tinted article from the rightwood Leaning restore trust that paints Robert Clive as nothing more than a perfectly Pleasant art collector Robert Clive's statue still stands outside the foreign office to this day a truly disturbing reminder of how little this company wants to learn about itself I do think personally I've a lot to thank this game for as far as pushing me into researching the past of the country I live in the Empire it created and the horrors that we as Brits routinely ignore I think this game will be controversial for a whole lot of people I think this game will be unplayable for a whole lot of people I think it deals with a really sticky thorny subject matter that's uncomfortable both in the way that players interact with it and the way the game itself presents but I do think if you travel down the path this game might start you on it becomes something else it becomes that work of art textured rich and utterly enthralling a Shining Light of what board games can do at the end of this video I wanted to recommend a broad selection of other works to check out if you're interested in this game or the history around it or board games more generally I suppose first up obviously I will absolutely recommend William darel's the Anarchy this is a book that I leaned on heavily for the research for this video seriously all of the good bits are basically ripped straight from this thing the whole luta loot connection it's like the first words of the book po Castle Robert Clive it's all in here it's Shameless how much I've stolen from this thing if you've read it it's probably quite embarrassing to watch this video uh I'm sorry Willie William Darren pull for for sort of reducing your your book to the low art of of a board game video it's also recommended on the back of John company's manual a fact that I literally only just realized today one day before this video is due to go out wo glorious Empire is also on the back of there an even toothier reply to revisionist history that's just as gripping as the anchy I'd also really suggest that curious folks watch no pun included excellent video essay on Colonial ISM in board games a perfectly pointed bit of criticism that is perfect for folks looking to get more of an insight into the themes of the games we consume all the time it's just great if you're interested in learning more about John company the board game specifically then Dan throw's review over on his website space Biff is a gorgeous and thorough dive into the game there is truly no one better writing about board games right now and now for the slightly awkward part of the ending of this video where I acknowledge that this video was me to come out whilst Molly house the next game from Whig games was still in crowdfunding it's a game that explores the flourishing queer culture of 18th century London facing off against those who sought to tear it down a deep interactive historical game beded in a fancy party dress I missed that deadline because I got ill and the on location sections of this video had to be pushed back because of it so this is the part of the video where I was supposed to tell you that you go ahead and back that game but you can't now the funding period has ended sorry instead I'll just strongly suggest that you follow worldly gear games on their socials to keep an eye out for whatever project it is they bring to crowdfunding next it's important that the work you want to see in the world is supported and as complex and unusual and potentially controversial a text as John company is I want more unusual odd stuff like it to exist in games Molly house will inevitably start another Journey just as interesting rewarding and thought provoking as this one was I cannot wait and finally a bit of a Shameless plug if you want to support shut up andit down in making videos like this one then please consider donating through our website or patreon as a reward for your patronage or website donation AG you'll get access to our bonus bits a whole bunch of extra videos and podcasts exclusively for donors as well as early access to a select few videos we tie it all up in a monthly newsletter you've got all your extra bits in one place and that's the end of this video thank you so much for watching and if you support us through our website or patreon doubly thank you for making big sprawling immersive projects like this possible appreciate it very much and here to the next one bye

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 344,701

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Game Review, Review, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Tom Brewster, John Company, Video Essay, John Company 2E, Wehrlegig Games

Id: ykrqCX2_mhU

Length: 48min 23sec (2903 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2023