The special feature of Risk Syria (€55.99, US$ 64.99) is that neither Assad’s government in Damascus nor the Syrian rebels take part in the game as powers in their own right. Instead, they are just game characters (soldier=1, tank=5, combat helicopter with barrel bomb=10) who are mercilessly played off against one another and sent to the slaughter by the real powers in the background.
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One of 25 mission cards included in the game |
The game is finished when there are no more Syrians. After a duration of about 37 hours, which is typical for Risk, the power that benefitted most of the civil war has won. Mission cards are drawn at the beginning of the game and define the players’ goals. These include increasing your profile in your home country, strategic access to natural resources, increasing your sphere of influence and strengthening your domestic arms industry.
If the Syria edition of Risk is well received on the board game market, Hasbro has plans to develop further board games relating to topical events. Potential future projects include a Greek version of Monopoly, Akropoly (all players start with horrendous debts) and Trump Jenga (the player who builds the tallest tower wins the right to grope the female players).
ssi; first published 2017-11-10
Read the German version HERE.