Apocalypse Reborn: Board Games (Semicanon)

Apocalypse Reborn: Board Games (Semicanon)

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Commissioned by J.A.

Wordcount: 2500

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Have you ever had the feeling that you’re making a bad decision, but went through with your idea anyway, for the sake of profit?

If you’re American, I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about perfectly.

If you’re from another country, allow me to explain.

Money is really good, so thoughts can be really bad, but still remain actionable.

In other words: ‘I really shouldn’t, but I’ll make some cash, so I will anyway.”

Anyhow, I was looking for ways to extract more money from my population. While I could most certainly gain money from them through taxation, the thought was anathema to me. While I’m up for ordering the deaths of tens of thousands of people and buying time by sacrificing cities to calamities, raising taxes is an evil which I’m never going to stoop to.

I might be a tyrant with aspirations to conquer the continent and the world, but I’m not a politician.

I have standards.

In the game itself, if you didn’t want to raise taxes, which lowers everything from Happiness to Production to even Unit Health in the game, you need to research enterprises and goods. All of it is in the economic tech tree, but the gist of it is that you’re uplifting your population, they’re making money, and you’re selling products to them via state-owned corporations for a hefty profit. They buy the neat stuff you make, you make money, and you invest that money into heavy industry and other commercial enterprises.

The infinite money machine of capitalism coupled with the heretical power and might of a socialist hellscape beneath a dictatorship.

Like I said, I’m evil.

I just have standards that I won’t cross for gameplay—I mean, ethical reasons.

Where am I going with this, you might ask?

Well, in-game, all of the research into making an economy was different for every Faction. The Conquerors, for example, commodify fighting and sports. They fuel their war machines and industry with the power of sports hooligans and merchandise sales. The Guardians have a key advantage in having loads of free labor and use it to mass-manufacture consumer goods and luxury things that take tedious amounts of work to create, like clocks or wine. The Wardens sell things with very brief descriptions, in inconspicuous packages, and pages that may-or-may-not end up sticky and crusty.

Well, I’m overgeneralizing things, but that’s the basic theme to give the factions flavor.

The humans of the world were the most boring in terms of flavor. They find old creature comforts, recreate them, and sell them to their populace. Bicycles, thermoses, fridges, gas stoves, sewing machines, washing machines, and stuff like that. Utilitarian stuff that elevates the existence of the ordinary person without doing much else, but also has the advantage of being wanted by everyone else on the continent, too. There was a lot of money involved, but there was also a lot of production needed, a lot ruins searched for clues and unlocks, and even research time in the University.

It's a mid-game to initial late-game economic booster.

So, of course, if I wanted more money now, I had to come up with things to sell to the public.

Naturally, I thought that people would like to have fun in their free time, so I came up with board games. Checkers, chess, mancala, pick-up sticks, and stuff like that. Easy to produce with just some paint, boards, and easy to learn with instructions printed out on a paper. It was the closest thing I could get to wasting time playing video games without a lot of tech being unlocked, so I went ahead and churned them out when they started to sell.

However… however… I made a foolish mistake of letting Risk and Monopoly out into the wild.

…

“The continent of Ausie is ridiculous! How could it only have two routes open for its attack with the number of troops it generates!” Riegert raged. He, Khanrow, and Ilych were the last ones standing in that game. “And the largest continent of them all is practically ringed with fronts! No matter how many troops it generates, you cannot hope to win!”

“You should have taken more time to look and observe the map, Riegert. You went after the most territory with the most production, only to be spread thin.” Khanrow as the typical know-it-all who smeared his advantage over your face. The sort of guy who’d flame you all game just to get at you mentally and win later. “As you can see, both Ausie and the leftmost, lower continent have the most limited fronts. You should consider—what are you doing, Ilych!? We had an alliance!”

“Only one may be victorious.” Ilych backstabbed Khanrow without a thought. I don’t know how they didn’t see it coming. Or, maybe, Riegert realized and never told Khanrow. Now, Ilych was rolling to take parts of South America. She stared right at Riegert, her father, and addressed him when he got that glint in his eye. “Many of his troops are positioned to strike at you. Attack me and we both lose.”

“Or, fight with you despite everything and maybe win? Alright. I’ll take that.”

“No!”

“Should’ve focused on the players instead of the map, Khanrow.”

With that, the final phases of Risk began to devolve into its usual messed up endings, until there were two people left and they either called a draw or both lost (time and sanity).

No one wins Risk.

Not really.

Still, it wasn’t even close to as bad as Monopoly was.

“You have landed on my Citadel. On the Academy Keep. That is 470 pieces of gold.” Ayah had both luck and numbers on her side. She had a good amount of the middle section, sold most of the first quarter, and locked down the last quarter. Every circle of the board, people were liable to lose as she had a Hotel on both the last, most expensive sections of the map. The Golem had no mercy. “Pay me. Now.”

“There isn’t even that much gold in the game! Even if I sold all my properties!”

“Then, I take all your gold, your properties, and you lose.”

“I know! Damn you!” Sirena had tears bubbling in her eyes. The Dark Elf had done her best, but such was her fate to lose because of misfortune. I’ve never seen someone roll three doubles, get sent to jail, get out after, roll doubles until going back to jail, and then hitting the jail space. She’s been in jail for sixty percent of the game. “Just kill me!”

“My victory now seems unlikely, but it shall be a worthy one if I do.” Conquest muttered while peering over the board. Ayah eyed her up and she met her glare. Sarala was already out for the count and his properties all fell to Conquest. She’s the one who cultivated the first quarter of the board. Not only that, but she was pretty lucky, as well. “Let us see who reigns victorious this day, Ayah.”

Anyway, in short, the board games were selling pretty well, but they were getting everyone’s competitive instinct up.

Hm.

Now that I thought about it, there was another game that we could all play together that would induce more headaches, heartache, and stress.

For a moment, I hesitated… then I realized that this was basically a way to get more money, so I couldn’t not do it. I needed every piece of gold I could get my hands on, and intellectual property and entertainment barely cost anything to maintain, while brining in ridiculous amounts of money when it hit.

Therefore, I had no choice.

I had to unleash… Settlers and all its expansions upon these poor people.

…

It was a battleground.

“Father. Three sheep for one wood.”

“Ilych, I’m your father. Not an idiot.”

“…Ayah. You require sheep.”

“Not enough to give you my few wood.”

“That’s a minute! Negotiations are over.”

I had to implement a rule where players could only trade on their turn and within a minute. Otherwise, everyone would be trading with everyone else, and turns would last minutes on end. A full circle around the table without the rule could take an entire hour for just six players. These guys were insane and I was regretting making Settlers already.

Ilych also had a glare on her face, while Sirena took the dice.

“Tch!”

“She’s going to roll damn ones again!”

“Yes! Twos! Please!” And, here, Sirena’s ‘bad’ luck was transferring to everyone else. She’d noticed the lowest average spots on the board and took them. Others thought she was being dumb and avoided them. Now, she was getting the glut of resources while everyone else saw their ‘high value’ spots not produce and resources. “Twos! That’s two wood, two brick, and 1 wheat for me!”

“Someone get a knight on her tile!” Sarala growled, while looming over the table in all his leonine glory. By that, I mean that some furry fetishist would die happy looking at him. The dude was a towering, humanoid lion and built like a tank. You’d never imagine him being an administrative Champion. Anyway, that didn’t matter since I wasn’t a furry, and this was a game of Settlers. Nothing mattered in Settlers besides winning. “She’ll have another city in two turns at this rate!”

“I’ll use my army as I see fit. They’re staying on those tiles, otherwise your docks ruin us all.” Khanrow held his cards. He had a small, select group of territories that were hard fought. He was playing the deck and producing armies, blocking people from getting longest road, and making judicious use of certain cards. He rolled a five, got his cards, and played them instantly. “Monopoly. All the brick, if you all would.”

“He’s making a settlement… in my area!” Riegert turned on his friend and glared at him. Khanrow’s face was perfectly stoic… before a smirk played on his lips. “We had a deal, you bastard! I gave you that wheat in confidence!”

“And, the wheat has been used. It was used long ago. Now, I need my people to prosper.” Khanrow as a manipulative son of a bitch in this game. The worst part was that he was getting the cards he needed, even though he was constrained in terms of resources. Nothing worse than some smug bastard enjoying making the game hell… and winning, too! “Now, who would like to trade for some brick. Any card. One to one.”

He turned to Ilych instantly, whose hand was full of sheep.

“Ilych, don’t you dare.”

“I need the sheep. I must.”

“No!”

Khanrow had an inhuman giggle leave his lips as he got three sheep. By my count, that was all he needed for three more draws from the chance cards.

Yeah.

This game is going to be hell, wasn’t it?

…

I banned Settlers from the table after the last game finished. Ilych had pulled out a victory by pulling one monopoly, getting the last resources she needed, and turning all her settlements into cities. Khanrow nearly had a stroke, Riegert didn’t know whether to cry or feel proud, while Sarala stormed out of the room.

Sirena was just happy to not have gotten last place.

Meanwhile, I was just having Rita test the latest game I was hoping to sell for cash.

“You have rolled a 7. Advance.”

“It seems that it is another payday for me, and I have landed on a life tile.”

“Do you think there’s too many or too few paydays?”

“There is not enough to buy, but the objective is to get money.”

“True, true. Pull the card.”

“I have another two children.”

“That’s two more life tokens for you, then.” I was aiming for Life to be a more sedate game. The slice-of-life game compared to all the competitive hellscapes I was unleashing on the general public. “A hundred more gold pieces each. At this rate, you’ll have over ten thousand before retirement for this piece. This is the University one, right?”

“Correct. Red is University. Blue entered a trade immediately. Green is university as well, but with rent. Yellow is a trade with rent. Green is in the lead, despite the growth in worth Red’s home is.” I took the total sums for the four pieces and gave them a quick once-over to check. Right. University is looking really too overpowered. That’s not real at all. Need to factor in student debt more to really punch people in the gut and question their choices. “Next?”

“Let’s put this aside for now, and just focus on getting things to work. Then, we can add strategies or some new cards.”

“Understood.”

I had to really wonder if these games were worth the time I was spending on them, especially when that time involved my Champions on the few times when we were all together.

Only time (and profits) will tell.

…

I’d like to say that I was swimming in money after selling off intellectual property from my world to the masses of this one.

However, I quickly found out that there was an issue with my plan.

“Everyone’s just… sharing all the board games with each other.” I groaned into my desk. “Should’ve seen that coming.”

The consumerism culture in this world wasn’t as high as back home. Even with my reputation and an advertising campaign, people still bought a set and just shared it amongst themselves. The fact that most people lived in apartments made it even worse. Whole apartment complexes could buy just two or three sets and they’ll be able to spread them out amongst everyone there.

In other words, the market was much smaller than I thought, thus demand was low.

The only saving grace was that I made only a small batch of each board game and didn’t invest too much into it.

“Well, at least I made my money back.” Most people going on their way to run a small business couldn’t even say that, so I went ahead and picked myself up from my slump. I had a rare moment of peace and solitude in my office, but I made the most of by giving myself a little pep-talk. “Alright, Jack, what’s next. That plan didn’t work out, so how are you going to get more money into your coffers?”

Right.

This was a draw, I still had funds, and I could still try again.

Time was wasted, but it was mostly my personal time, so it wasn’t much of a loss.

“What do lots of people need that they’re not just going to share with each other, but’s cheap to make and no one will complain about having to constantly replace?” Underhanded business practices were the name of the game here. People could complain about the products being garbage after we win. I wracked my brain, before coming to a realization. “Fast food!”

Bliss-point attenuated, fried goodness that represented the cornerstone of a billion-dollar industry! Sure, there was going to be health draw backs, but in a world where sedentary lifestyles were the minority and magic existed in healthcare? That hardly mattered!

I need money, people love greasy, sweet, and salty food, so it’s going to be a win-win!