Board Game Review: Bloc by Bloc
From C4SS by Evan Pierce
For better or worse, board games tend to be a popular form of entertainment in radical spaces, and yet there are precious few games that explicitly deal with anarchist ideas. For those exhausted by games glorifying nationalistic conquest, monopoly capitalism, and settler colonialism, Bloc by Bloc: The Insurrection Game may offer a breath of refreshing (if tear-gas-scented) air. According to the introduction in the manual, Bloc by Bloc is “a semi-cooperative game simulating protest movements, riots and popular uprisings in urban areas of the world during the first decades of the 21st century.” The name refers to the black bloc, a tactic used to anonymize and thereby protect participants in these uprisings, and in the game refers to the literal wooden blocks that represent such participants.