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Wednesday 20 November 2019

Christmas games – Piggy



As Christmas approaches we appear to lack a series of Animal Farm inspired family games to educate the little ones about politics. It would need to fit in with modern times without losing the overall Orwellian flavour so here is one tentative suggestion.

"Piggy" would be a topical family board game introduced in time for Christmas but the game also fits in well into the frenetic atmosphere of the UK General Election.

At the beginning of each game players are dealt various cards to determine the strategies they should adopt when playing Piggy. The basic aim for each player is to roll the dice, move their chosen board token and land on areas of the board which allow them to “hide” certain cards in their hand. In some situations a player with too many cards to “hide” may have the option of “emigrating” which allows him or her to leave the game and watch TV.

One player only will have been dealt the single Piggy card and this player must try to roll the dice, move around the board and appropriate as many cards as possible from the other players before they can “hide” them or “emigrate”. In which case the player with the Piggy card wins the game and claims Piggy!

The cards which players need to “hide” as quickly as possible are Pension Cards, Savings Cards, Job Cards, Free Speech Cards and Education Cards. Added interest comes when the holder of the Piggy card also draws the “Green” card and is allowed to make up new rules on every throw of the dice.

Fun for all the family.

For a while.

3 comments:

Sam Vega said...

The game needs a "Swinson rule". If any player (preferably a woman with a screechy voice) objects to another players's score, she can choose to ignore it by claiming that the scorer doesn't understand the situation as well as she does.

Scrobs. said...

Piggy was the game, where being 'In croup', like in 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue', meant that one could alter the rate of income tax in time for the students getting all those free Ipads and loans, could then pay it back before they reached 21.

It was a complicated measure, and only really understood my someone who liked reading books on Joe Stalin, but didn't have a clue about the real world!

A K Haart said...

Sam - or maybe "Swinson" could be a game too. Something like Cluedo where the person holding a "Swinson" card can tell the other players that they didn't really want to go into their chosen room at all but must stay where they are.

Scrobs - you mean people who think a Stalin biography is a kind of DIY book?