A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now.
China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation.
The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians working to sabotage the Taiwan’s defense, as well as citizens picking up guns to defend their homeland.
Taiwanese board game maker Mizo Games started crowdfunding the game in August. Within two-and-a-half months, the company had received more than NT$4 million (US$122,261) to fund the project.
“It is not quite peaceful around Taiwan and the Western Pacific as we speak,” Mizo Games founder Chang Shao-lian (張少濂) said.
Chang said he wanted “players to feel they want to win and think about what they will do to win.”
The game, which is also to go on sale in the US and Europe later in the year, has been developed at a time when officials have intensified preparations for scenarios, including a China conflict.
Players who participated in a play test of 2045 said they learned about what might happen in the event of a Chinese invasion and that they hoped the game could help people understand the implications of a war.
“I am not very knowledgeable on military matters, therefore through this game I learned about where the army may land and launch an attack,” said Kalin Lai, a 23-year-old who tried out the game.
Mizo Games has created two other Taiwan war-themed board games — one about surviving an air raid in Taipei and the other about a bombing in Kaohsiung during Japan’s colonization of the nation between 1895 and 1945.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
A man in Tainan has been cleared on charges of public insult after giving the middle finger during a road rage incident, as judges deemed the gesture was made “briefly to express negative feelings.” In last week’s ruling at the High Court’s Tainan branch, judges acquitted a driver, surnamed Cheng (程), for an incident along Tainan’s Nanmen Road in September 2023, when Cheng had spotted a place to park his car in an adjacent lane. Cheng slowed down his vehicle to go into reverse, to back into the parking spot, but the car behind followed too closely, as its driver thought Cheng
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
President William Lai (賴清德) should protect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), and stop supporting domestic strife and discord, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrote on Facebook yesterday. US President Donald Trump and TSMC on Monday jointly announced that the company would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next few years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US. The TSMC plans have promoted concern in Taiwan that it would effectively lead to the chipmaking giant becoming Americanized. The Lai administration lacks tangible policies to address concerns that Taiwan might follow in Ukraine’s footsteps, Ma wrote. Instead, it seems to think it could
RSS