Haddow Press Experiment

Clash of the Ersatz

Archived in Games, Philosophy, Simulations |

Two good friends and I are in league to build something amounting to a card-based strategy game.

In summary:

Ersatz Clash is a card-based, multi-player table game combining many elements of strategy, chance, and complexity. Two or more players compete with an expandable collection of card elements to build their own “ersatz”, poorly simulated universes clashing for supremecy and control of the finite number of “dums” trapped inside their SIMULATIONS.

Group it under funny, philosophical ENTERTAINMENT.

The idea stemmed from one of those late-night, half-sober conversations about the nature of reality.

I’m sure you can relate.

Well, okay. Maybe not. The whole “nature-of-reality” was actually my interpretation. In actuality we were talking about The Matrix. (And, gawd, how I hate to bring THAT up here. These days it seems that every philosophical discussion on the nature of reality lead back to that damned movie.) And the after-the-fact, now-I’m-sober, paraphrased recap of that discussion went something like this:

“Sir, would it not be an interesting proposition that all of humanity is purely the result of a computer simulated reality?”

“Yes, my good man, I do believe that you are correct.”

“Ah, but would the simulation indeed be a COMPUTER generated reality?”

“But, sir, whatever do you mean?”

“Could it not also be possible that the simulated reality is caused by a virus or induced via drugs or chemicals?”

“Good point, ol’ chap. Well played. Perhaps there are many simulated realities that are all vying for our minds.”

“Indeed! Perhaps there is an ongoing contest for control of our lives.”

“How droll. Somebody ought to make a game out of that.”

And thus (though perhaps not as formally) work on Ersatz Clash began. And, it just so happens, that as we work out the details of half-assed philosophical card GAMES a number of equally interesting reflections emerge. That approach so far has been an amused reflection on the question “what is reality?” In other words, what quasi-baked state of being might lead to a comprehensive simulation of a simulation: a weak copy of a copy. Shady as it might seem these shades of game stem from an innate desire for us to project a philosophical musing towards our concepts of a likely-to-doom scenario. We’ve pieced out the shape of (to date) four factions; Our factions are born of a sense of mental controls and artificial stimulation: (a) drugs, (b) technology, (c) religion, and (d) infection. Those concepts tend to transcend the nature of what we think is reality and shape that perception through control or force.

For what it’s worth, when the game is done, I think it will rock. To hell with Dungeons and Dragons: it’s TIME for something interesting.

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