I promise this won’t become a food review. Although if you could see the embarrassingly touristy pictures of what I spent the past weekend eating in New Orleans, you would understand the impulse. The story of how I came to be trapped in a not-as-haunted-as-advertised hotel with sixteen game designers and wargaming wonks isn’t as exciting as it could have been. Short version: I had a flight voucher two months shy of expiration.

But the games — oh, the games.

There’s no need to cover all of them. You already know how to play Two Truths And A Lie — the key is in the title — and my brisk review of Matt Calkins’ Charioteer is that it’s too arithmetical for its own good. Instead, here are the weekend’s two standouts.

This is where your bananas come from.

Daniel Bullock excels at making board games about why you shouldn’t feel great about things you once felt great about. Whether you’re feeling superior to North Korea and Iran, loving David Bowie, or not holding a nuanced enough perspective on the French Revolution, his whole shtick, besides coloring his boxes a sexually aggressive shade of red, is all about cluttering his subject matter until your once-secure knowledge has been given a few spins.

For instance, that banana you ate this morning — maybe you’d like to feel terrible about it? Welcome to Fruit.

Fruit retells the history of the United Fruit Company, the American multinational that bought politicians both domestically and abroad, funded coups, and lobbied for U.S. invasions of regimes that didn’t play ball. Central American journalists called it el pulpo for the tentacles it had in everything; O. Henry coined the term “banana republic” to describe countries under its sway. In other words, it’s about very bad people indeed.

In similar fashion to Cole Wehrle’s Pax Pamir, players don’t control the company directly, but rather the middlemen who stand to gain or lose everything by parlaying their loyalties in multiple directions. As an impresario, you can control a stake in the success of the United Fruit Company, support one or more of the countries in its sights, or perhaps have more nefarious objectives — namely, organizing labor to secure Central American prosperity from outside interests. Brrr, the horror.

This process is anything but easy. For one thing, each impresario has three separate secret objectives. You might, for instance, have a minor stake in the company while also hoping to secure Nicaraguan independence, leading you to viciously undermine your neighbors in Honduras and Costa Rica while stringing along the U.S. with the promise of a second continent-spanning canal. Or you might be so invested in the company that you function as a jet-setting arsonist, ousting any politician who dares claw back their country’s many tax havens and settle their foreign debts. It’s possible to change loyalties mid-stream, but not easily, as I discovered when my beloved Guatemala fell prey to one dictatorial coup after another, forcing me to scramble for safer shores.

My Banana of Shame.

What was so interesting about my failure, though, was how it scattered itself across a spectrum of personal errors, rival shenanigans, and my (character’s) rapacious nature. As a staunch Guatemalan, I started the game in earnest, helping to secure a democratic government and enact beneficial policies. We also fared well in our early border clashes with Honduras, seizing prime growing land. But when our country failed to export enough fruit to cover our debts, I told myself I was doing the necessary thing by propping up an authoritarian coup, opening the ports, and shipping out all those bananas. Debts covered, I would soon return our government to the citizens.

That never happened. One grievance and worker strike after another forced me to crack down, first supporting censorship and eventually welcoming U.S. troops into the country to keep my precious citizens in line. We ceded the borderlands back to Honduras, my plans to destabilize Colombia went nowhere, and the same authoritarians I had catapulted into office handed entire swaths of our country to the United Fruit Company. In the end, despite my accumulated wealth I wasn’t able to secure my escape. A suitable coda to a life ill-spent. On the table, it was something of a downer.

Above it, however, Fruit was a rollicking time. Even as a prototype, this is the strongest piece I’ve seen from Bullock yet. It’s entangled without being complicated, piercing in subject matter but still a riot to play, and far more social than any of his previous work. My impresario had chosen to dine with cannibals, only to blink in disbelief when his own haunch was served up on a platter.

Which is, to put a point on it, perhaps the best possible outcome for a game like this. Call it a dollop of poetic justice to go along with the strikebreaking, authoritarian tendencies, and capitalist greed. If Fruit finds the right publisher, this stands a good chance of becoming one of the finest games-as-villainy ever produced.

Muffuletta from Butcher Cochon.

Oops! How did that sneak in here? My bad!

Managing the invasion of Iran.

Speaking of muffulettas — sorry, I mean games about playing the villain — I was next introduced to Chalice of Poison by Akar Bharadvaj.

When Chalice of Poison opens, Saddam Hussein has just launched the invasion of Iran. Multiple battle groups are driving across the border, the limited air forces and navies of Iraq and Iran are jostling for superiority, and both sides are ready to transform their enemy’s suppressed minorities into armed insurgents. Everybody believes the war will be over by Eid. Which, if you’re even forty years old, you’ll recall as something of a pipe dream. Better settle in for the long haul. Also for a number of purges, promotions, and for Saddam to go nutso when his ports in the Persian Gulf get blockaded.

On the game’s topmost layer, Bharadvaj presents the war as a series of battles, each conducted States of Siege-like across various fronts. Your troops, split between the regular army, elite guard, and reedier paramilitaries, are assigned to each sector in secret, along with orders to attack, defend, or suppress the region’s dissidents. Battles then play out from a distance. Depending on your preparations, military strength, and the conduct of your generals, these fronts slowly grind into enemy territory. Or, more often, remain stuck in place while casualties accumulate and nobody gets anywhere at all.

Beneath that layer, though, is a rumination on the nature of authoritarian power. Despite their pretenses to strongman governance, both sides of this conflict, Saddam and Khomeini alike, have carefully coup-proofed their armies, a process that has necessarily left them incapable of even the most basic tasks. With their ablest generals retired and their replacements playing inflate-the-numbers to secure promotions, neither side can deliver a decisive blow. As the conflict drags into multiple years, previously unthinkable options start to hit the table. Chemical weapons, intel from foreign nations, attacks on friendly troops who dare retreat from battle… and that’s provided your generals don’t decide to take matters into their own hands.

Twin uprisings and coups kneecap Iran.

At its most interesting, Chalice of Poison simulates warfare as a social battle as much as one involving tanks and bullets. Your leader sits atop a precarious pyramid, their cult of personality a sandy foundation that might topple at any moment. It’s possible to lose the military fight outright, of course, especially as both nations modernize their armies, but your real vulnerabilities are internal. Better communications will allow your armies to coordinate in the field, but also lets them plot against you. Promoting on merit is superior to prioritizing whichever cousin pinkie-promises to never attack your royal palace in the dead of night, but also sees your internal foes growing shrewder and more popular. And in the margins, the same out-groups you’ve been merrily scapegoating might take advantage of your divided attention to launch a revolution against your regime.

This might sound complicated, but Bharadvaj presents these fluctuating power levels with refreshing clarity. Your dictator’s strength is represented by a pile of cubes — the same cubes they spend to take actions. Promoting generals, improving communications and training, and inspecting the cards that dictate how battles play out are all necessary to succeed in the ongoing war, but gradually erode your leader’s authority. Meanwhile, generals and dissidents are accruing cubes of their own. If ever their stockpile outweighs yours… well, it isn’t necessarily game over, but the writing is on the wall.

All told, Chalice of Poison isn’t quite as far along as Fruit, but even at this early stage it’s an impressive and ambitious plaything. And its critique is unexpectedly timely, highlighting how strongman governments weaken their nations in the name of strengthening their regimes. Huh! Weird! Good thing we don’t have that to worry about! Provided the center holds long enough, I’m eager to see how Chalice of Poison continues to take shape.

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