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StreetTech points to a page of freely downloadable paper-based games while reminiscing about the good ol' days of paper gaming in the eighties and early ninties. One of the games that piqued my interest is Battle of Seattle, which is a simulation game about the N30 uprising. I suppose it isn't the first game to invoke the memory of Seattle; the N30-inspired video game State of Emergency came out a few years back.

The entry for Battle of Seattle pointed to a list of games called "Games for Hippies, Commies, Radicals and Subversives." I don't think the creators of the list are self-described radicals, considering the tone of the introduction. Moreover, one game, Bell-Bottomed Badassses on the Mean Streets of Funk, rehashes racist stereotypes from blaxploitation film. Many of the games on the list relate to drug use, which may appeal to some activists, and I might add that the computer game DopeWars is surprisingly fun. As a kid, I had one of the games on the list, Steve Jackson's classic Illuminati, which we discussed in Janet Staiger's "Historiography" class last semester. Maybe I'll be able to track it down the next time I'm at my parents' house; it seems like a game that media studies grad students could get into.

Growing up, these games could really take hold of my imagination, but I remember feeling disappointed actually playing the games. Game mechanics were often too complex, particularly for middle school boys, and one game I saved for months for, Outdoor Survival, was just plain boring. The art for Gammarauders had me fantasizing for days - I loved the heavily armored penguin - but I don't think I ever even played the game. It seemed like you needed more than two players to enjoy these games, and I seemed to socialize best in one-on-one settings. I've often joked that I lacked the social skills to play Dungeons and Dragons, and perhaps that is why I never became an Über Goober.