‘Target mainland’: planned Troubles board game condemned in Northern Ireland

It pits the IRA against the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, it lets players plant bombs and make political deals and it promises to wrap up the conflict within six hours.Welcome to the Troubles – the provisional board game version. The brainchild of a US games company, The Troubles: Shadow War in Northern Ireland 1964-1998, is played with dice, tokens and a deck of 260 cards.The game is not yet complete or available for purchase, but disclosure of its existence on Thursday prompted an outcry in Northern Ireland, where a victims’ rights group said it could retraumatise people.“They’re oversimplifying what is a very complex issue,” said Kenny Donaldson of the South East Fermanagh Foundation. Victims and survivors could feel “triggered” by the game, he said. “Many will feel that it has the effect of minimising their suffering.”The proposed Troubles-themed board game has cards with titles such as ‘nutting squad’, ‘sniper at work’ and ‘Stakeknife’. Photograph: Compass GamesThe proposed game overlooked the conflict’s enduring legacy, said Donaldson. “What would be the likely response of 9/11 families were these US producers to make a comparable board game about 9/11, with players being the FBI, a terrorist murdering pilot?“The core failure of this initiative is the lack of understanding that ‘the Northern Ireland Troubles’ are not past tense, they remain inextricably linked with Northern Ireland society today.”The Belfast Telegraph was the first to report that Compass Games, a Connecticut-based company that makes board games based on military history, had a Troubles-themed game available for preorder on its website for $85 (£63.20).Bill Thomas, the company’s founder and president, told the Guardian the game remained in development and would not be released for several years. “This is not the final version. It’s not even close to being final. It has to be play tested. We’re doing a lot of development on it.”Compass Games – which makes board games about battles from antiquity as well as more recent conflicts – sought to give an accurate depiction of Northern Ireland’s conflict, said Thomas. “This is to protect history, not to make fun of it.”Donaldson said victims and survivors could feel ‘triggered’ by the game. Photograph: Horst Friedrichs/AlamyThe game was designed by Hugh O’Donnell, a secondary school teacher in Scotland, and delves back to Westminster’s 1886 home rule bill to explain the trajectory of Ireland’s partition and the evolution of Northern Ireland.“I was expecting 20 or 30 pages of rules, that’s not what I got,” said Thomas. “It was far more complex and over 200 pages. That’s why it’s taken so long to go through development and play testing.”In the current iteration, two to six players adopt the role of a “faction” – such as security forces, the IRA, loyalist paramilitaries or nationalist or unionist politicians – and attempt to prevail over opponents while navigating political and security currents.Paramilitaries have the option of attacking or colluding with security forces. Photograph: Compass GamesParamilitaries have the option of attacking or colluding with security forces – the IRA mole known as Stakeknife is cited and political factions can choose between backing terrorism, contesting elections and sharing power.The instructions read: “Each faction may use primary and secondary actions analogous to its real world counterparts, or may choose from the 259 rich narrative cards, divided into eight key epochs in Northern Ireland’s recent history.”Epochs include the “bloody years” of the early 1970s, the “iron and hunger” of the early 1980s when Margaret Thatcher battled republican hunger strikers and the “target mainland” campaign of the mid 1980s, when the IRA launched high-profile attacks in England.In addition to maps, sheets and markers the game includes blue cubes representing “RUC troops”, blue cylinders representing RUC bases, black octagons representing IRA active service units and black cylinders representing IRA bases. British military units are tan, loyalist paramilitaries are red, unionist politicians are orange and nationalists are green. There is also a “historical playbook” and a “rules booklet”.The Troubles game would be an educational tool, said Thomas. “Kids in their 20s and 30s in America know nothing about history. You have to make it interesting.”People in Northern Ireland endured a “tough time” but outsiders would be oblivious unless the history of the Troubles was told in engaging ways, said Thomas. “Do you want that memory to never exist, for no one outside Northern Ireland or the UK to understand that it ever happened?”