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[ by Charles Cameron — compare, contrast, and consider ]
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Let’s do some remote comparative play-testing, okay?

You are an impressionable youth — imagine! — which game would entice you? This one, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, “played” here without a soundtrack —

— reviewed with wider context, more detail and critique here:

— or, this one, from the Islamic State —

— with a hat-tip to Grand Theft Auto?

[ by Charles Cameron — busy tidying away six or more posts before Spring Break delivers my college-age son to me — here’s one ]
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We observe Shakespeare gaming — staging — playing — the Battle of Agincourt:

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A play, a game, a gamble. The odds are “fearful”..

WESTMORELAND
Of fighting men they have full three score thousand.
EXETER
There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh.
SALISBURY
God’s arm strike with us! ’tis a fearful odds.
WESTMORELAND
O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

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Medieval 2 Total War also games Agincourt:

Sadly, the voice over doesn’t seem to get any more rousing than this:

Henry’s longbowmen will be the key to defeating the French, striking them down as they traverse the muddy field. To protect his longbowmen from cavalry, Henry has ordered them to plant sharpened stakes in front of their positions…

An earthy voice shouts, “For Saint George!” a couple of times, but that’s about the level of inspiration offered. I haven’t played the game, I’m going by the video overview — but there’s no mention there of Crispin — though we do hear a yokel shout:

Once more unto the breach, my Lord

— a line swiped (and then tweaked) from King Henry himself, earlier in the play — at the siege of Harfleur, not at Agincourt, to be exact.

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It seems to me that the novel (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), film (Kagemusha, say) and television on occasion (The Honourable Woman) rise to their respective occasions — but games I think, not so much, thus far.

I look forward (on behalf of future generations, I suppose) to the Kurosawa of the game genre — and to its Jean Cocteau.

[ by Charles Cameron — silly fun.. ]
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I’d say that here Kim Jong-Un —

Escaped rhinoceros from Pyongyang Zoological Park wrestled into submission by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un, saving over thirty schoolchildren.

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) January 27, 2016

would easily Trump, ahem, Vladimir Putin —

Me killing it on @60Minutes tonight! #USSR #Badass pic.twitter.com/AsPwPtbDPP

— KGBPutin (@KgbPutin) September 28, 2015

if he’d had access toi a camera and Photoshop.

[ by Charles Cameron — not to mention Alasdair MacIntyre ]
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First, Calvinball:

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If you’ve been following my stuff for a while, you’ll know I’m interested in situations where two teams or individuals are playing two different games. As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre put it:

Not one game is being played, but several, and, if the game metaphor may be stretched further, the problem about real life is that moving one’s knight to QB3 may always be replied to by a lob over the net.

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Roland Barthes, the French philosopher, made a related observation:

This public knows very well the distinction between wrestling and boxing; it knows that boxing is a Jansenist sport, based on a demonstration of excellence. One can bet on the outcome of a boxing-match: with wrestling, it would make no sense. A boxing-match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator; in wrestling, on the contrary, it is each moment which is intelligible, not the passage of time… The logical conclusion of the contest does not interest the wrestling-fan, while on the contrary a boxing-match always implies a science of the future. In other words, wrestling is a sum of spectacles, of which no single one is a function: each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without ever extending to the crowning moment of a result.

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So what does this have to do with Donald Trump?

Just that one of the more interesting things I’ve read about Trump’s campaign is Judd Legum‘s This French Philosopher Is The Only One Who Can Explain Why Trump Is Skipping The Republican Debate — and his key graph essentially applies Barthes’ distinction to MacIntyre’s observation:

In the current campaign, Trump is behaving like a professional wrestler while Trump’s opponents are conducting the race like a boxing match. As the rest of the field measures up their next jab, Trump decks them over the head with a metal chair.

If, like me, you find that idea illuminating, by all means read the whole thing.

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Bingo!

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Ah, but..

.. now that Go, like Chess, has fallen to the wiles of the computer, I suppose we can chuck our games of strategy books and cast our pleading glances towards the new overlords.

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Throw away books? Never!!

And just for the record, here’s Calvinball, the full version:

[ by Charles Cameron — two Churchill games suitable for militarily-inclined cigar mavens ]
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First, because Rumsfeld here releases Churchill‘s own game in digital form, we have Churchill Solitaire:

And second, more interesting from my POV because it’s a variant on what I’ve called “threeness games” —

Enjoy!