The Mechanic is the Message, the role of Brenda Romero’s Train (2009) in the Games as Art Debate

  • Evan Green

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Considering the fact that games have existed since antiquity, the academic study of board games appears to have been largely overlooked until recently. This thesis begins by examining the turn of the century phenomenon which Felan Parker succinctly referred to in retrospect as “the Games as Art debate” (Parker, 2018, p77), wherein attempts to add cultural legitimacy to games – both as activity and object of study – were made by some scholars who described them as works of Art in their own right, while others preferred to consider games as their own, distinct medium. Amidst this heated dialogue, Brenda Romero published a series of games that encouraged players to engage, through game-play, with certain tragic, historic human events.This research centres around Brenda Romero’s controversial board game Train (2009). Later described by Games scholar John Sharp as not merely a game but, rather, an example of “Artgame” (2015, p. ), a term he introduced to Game Studies, Train explores the complex relationships that exist between games and their players and, inevitably (though it appears not intentionally), encroaches on the Games as Art debate by asking whether these relationships are akin to artwork-audience relationships. The research concludes by identifying a method for interpreting games, testing this method through an analysis of Train.
Date of Award20 Jun 2024
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorAnna Powell (Main Supervisor) & Stephen Hibbert (Co-Supervisor)

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