Up Against The Wall, Motherf*****!

About

Components: 12 markers and 24 small cards, to be mounted by the players Map: 1 double newspaper page with a cartoon representation of the Columbia campus Scales: abstract Sorry, but that is the title. This game took as its subject the student demonstrations at Columbia University and was originally published in the 11 March 1969 number of the Connection, a supplement to the Columbia Daily Spectator, near the date of the first anniversary of the riots. Jim Dunnigan, then aged 25 and described in the game's "designer's notes" as a history major in the School of General Studies, had already designed 1914 and was at the time working on Origins of World War II, but was asked to take time out to work on this design. The game is for two players, Radicals and Administration. The map features eleven tracks for each of the political subgroups in the game (e.g. Black Students, Moderate Strikers, Alumni, Harlem Community). The objective for the players is to have the most influence, determined by the positions of markers on these tracks, for their side by the end of the twelfth turn. During a turn, players deploy abstracted units representing their political leverage onto the tracks to 'attack' the other player's units (as tokens, Dunnigan suggests small pieces of paper colored red or marijuana seeds for the Radicals, and blue bits of paper or capsules of Seconal for the Administration) and so move the markers towards their 'end' of the tracks. The 24 Contingency Cards add some randomness by taking or giving units of wherewithal to one player or another. SPI sold photocopies of this game supplement for a couple of years after its start. They are hard to find now and command a high price.

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