Have Your Say

Thanks to the wonders of interweb magic, you can now comment on blog posts and contribute to the ongoing mayhem that is the WoT Blog. It's a bit of an experiment - we're planning not to censor comments unless someone posts something utterly pointless, eg. spam, irrelevance, codez, bigotry of all kinds and, well, anything that fails to contribute on any level. That means if you're going to insult us, make it constructive.

So Christmas is just around the corner and we're hoping War on Terror will be the traditional board game of choice in many family homes. If you open up War on Terror tomorrow, please take lots of festive photos of cracker hats and balaclavas and send them our way. We're hoping to put together a special Christmas gallery. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, use your imagination and send us an amusing photo anyway.

As an early Christmas present, we have to share with you this fantastic video we were sent. Graham has been travelling in the States and noticed a life-size cut-out of George W. Bush in a shop window. He happened to have an EVIL balaclava on him (we recommend you carry yours with you at all times too) and just couldn't resist ... watch what happened on You Tube.

And just before you go, take a look at the latest EVIL Gallery entries and someone's broken a new EVIL Challenge.

Happy Christmas, play safe, have fun and don't do anything we wouldn't.

Let Us Ruin Christmas - Together!

Ahh, it's Christmas... So here's our Christmas message: The planet's fucked, the economy's fucked, Capitalism's fucked. So, like the band that played on as the Titanic sank, why not relax and enjoy yourselves...

Roast a terrorist, gorge yourself on a defenceless empire, plump up a coup, nestle up with a politician or spring a delightfully well wrapped IED - your choice. Play by our rules, or play by your rules, and hope they're the same as your neighbours' rules.

Christmas is that special time for falling out with family. But with the help of War on Terror the Boardgame it doesn't have to be that way. We suggest trying for 'World Peace' this Christmas instead. We put this special ending in the rules ages ago but in three years of testing, peace only broke out twice...so do your bit this year and make it a peaceful one. Although for all you warring nutters out there don't worry, being the peace envoy doesn't mean you can't have your murderous fun too: you can still be an aggressive war criminal at the same time. Just ask dear, Christian Tony Blair. Good will to all.

In other news, we were as shocked as everyone else that not only did Richard Perle come clean about the illegality of the Iraq war, but that it has barely been given coverage in the mainstream media. Can you imagine 80's Soviet Russia owning up to the fact that its invasion of Afghanistan was illegal and this admission passing without comment in the Western media? So to redress the balance, here's the story again.

The planet's fucked, the economy's fucked, Capitalism's fucked... We're almost done. We've just got to draw your attention to our page of Stockists and all the lovely new shops that have come on board. If you know of any that are missing from our list, please let us know.

Amazon.com are also now stocking the game (Amazon.co.uk for our fellow countryfolk). Be a love and write us an impossibly brilliant review, will you? We're giving away a FREE, SIGNED GAME to the most blatantly made up superlative praise. eg. "this is game is so good, I now speak 6 different languages fluently and then I invented fire".

And for all our Antipodean comrades, a reminder that you can now get the game through New Internationalist and we also have a special EVIL challenge for our friends at the newspaper that called for a ban on the game - you know the one where the guy offered to take us into a room and kick the shit out of us. We'd like to send them a special present of you wearing a balaclava in their reception area.

AMAZON COMPETITION UPDATE - 16 Dec: We've had some shockingly good entries to our 'most outlandish claim in an Amazon review' competition, including one that has taken the definition of 'superlative' to new, giddy heights. We also particularly like the headline of another review: "Terror-ific!" But the race is far from over. If you want the chance of winning a free, signed game, get writing those reviews: Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Opening Soon: The Balaclava Museum

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As we've bemoaned before, "business" can be pretty dull at times - regardless of what you're dealing with. However, there's always one component guaranteed to raise a smile and that's the EVIL balaclava.

Whether it's measuring eye holes for a new design spec or stipulating the exact wording of text on the label, the absurdity of including a balaclava in a board game never fails to make us chuckle. The new balaclava is a silky smooth poly-cotton mix, not unlike a wrestler's mask Just the thought that with each new game, there's also a new EVIL balaclava owner ... it almost gives us delusions of grandeur, like we have our own private balaclava army waiting in the wings.

Since the second print-run of War on Terror (summer '07), there's been a new, improved, refined, light-weight balaclava. Reports from sweaty convention halls and the Iraqi desert alike convinced us that the 'knitted look' wasn't without it's practical drawbacks. The new balaclava, therefore, is a silky smooth poly-cotton mix, not unlike a wrestler's mask, but it's still absolutely terrifying. Maybe more so than the original.

It was during a recent moment of take-a-step-back-and-realise-how-weird-things-have-become that we noticed we had enough balaclava samples to open a small, esoteric and slightly disturbing museum: The Museum of the Evil Balacava. But we're not going to open a museum, that would just be mental. However, what we are going to do is share this item's bizarre history with you in picture format and present a gallery of balaclava samples we've acquired over the years. Let us link arms and skip down memory lane whilst wearing frightening headgear...

WoT Inking #01

"Plans are afoot to extend the amount of time that terrorism suspects can be held without charge to 42 days. At 28 days, the UK already has the strictest detention laws in the western world. Even Gordon Brown's security minister was 'unconvinced' about the the proposal ... unconvinced that is until a short meeting with the Prime Minister (and the persuasive power of a P45)"

War on Terror illustrator, Tom Morgan-Jones has decided to illustrate current events, showing our prime minister, Gordon Brown, shall we say, 'overpowering' Lady Justice on the matter of detention of terrorist suspects.

Tom says that he's intending to do more of these, so we optimistically labelled this 'Wot Inking #01', hinting at the future existence of at least 9 more. But you never know, this could be a valuable one-off, so click on the image for a larger one and use it as your desktop now before it's GONE FOREVER.

War on Terror - a Year On

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We all know that the real 'war on terror' has been sewing the seeds of democracy for years now in dark and primitive corners of the world. Evil-doers and terrorists, unable to bear the sweet scent of freedom, have had no option but to run and hide. So what of our own humble game - the unscrupulous sickness of a boardgame that our twisted minds conjured up from nothing but our own gutter-dwelling depravity and was in no way related to the insanity of real-world events? Our own private war on terror is just one year old and to celebrate, here's a little retrospective ...

Yes indeedy, a year ago today, we held a launch party at the Front Line Club in London. It ended in chaos with puke, wine and bits of terrorist pinata strewn about the pristine white venue. That mess - not all our own doing, we have to stress - turned out to be representative of the following 12 months: a glorious, technicolour, chaotic explosion of fun and accidents. Join us aboard the retro-rollercoaster that is HMS TerrorBull Games...

terrorists, unable to bear the sweet scent of freedom, have had no option but to run and hide To start, we have to go back a little further than a year to the time when War on Terror came into existence for many people as they opened the paper one Monday morning in September.

September 06 - starting with our local paper, the Cambridge Evening News devoting the front page, the middle page spread and the op. ed. piece to our boardgame, things rapidly snowballed. Before the week was up, the game had been mentioned in newspapers, on radio stations and TV stations all over the world. We particularly enjoyed the 'Sick' and 'Fury' headlines from The Sun and The Daily Mail. But more than anything, we got a crash course in media relations. It's rare you get a real insider's view of what the media claim the public think and what the public actually think. This is how illegal wars are able to start - because the media are completely unrepresentative of anything but their own corporate and power interests.

October 06 - Our first business relationship goes tits up. Charles Gee Group decide to terminate our contract by email just 4 days before they were due to ship 5,000 copies of War on Terror to the UK. We're also banned from our first Toy Fair in Essen, who (now infamously) decried the game as 'sick and ridiculous' and 'worse than a swastika'. Nuremburg, New York and London Toy Fairs are all swift to follow suit. We begin to learn what the phrase 'commercial leper' really means.

November 06 - First games arrive, although they are delayed at customs. Tensions mount as the pre-order list grows. Seeing a 12m high stack of shipping cartons labelled 'war on terror game' made us delirious with joy. We hold a protest game in Parliament Square (which ends in 'world peace') and we officially launch the game at the Front Line Club in London. Black militia men and Terrorist Bingo are among the highlights of an insane evening, all filmed by our own private documentary crew as well as Al Arabiya news.

December 06 - War on Terror turns up barely in time for Christmas. A last-minute rush means we average around 3 hours sleep a night for the last few weeks of the year.

January 07 - Uniservegate hits us hard. More and more deliveries go missing. Things come to a head when Mr Man-At-The-Top decides he has something personal against our game and puts a halt to things, literally.

February 07 - We're forced to close down the website while we sort things out with Uniserve. Court is narrowly avoided only when we drive down to their warehouses and refuse to leave without at least enough games to clear the backlog they've created. TBG HQ is transformed into a kind of box-maze with floor-to-ceiling War on Terror. Over the coming weeks, Uniserve chuck us out of their warehouse and hold the rest of our stock to ransom.

April 07 - After finally rescuing our games, we head off to the Home of the 'war on terror', the United States of America for our first Game Convention in Las Vegas. This involves, among other things, sneaking through customs with 40 balaclavas, unexploded bomb signs, 200 cockroaches and 150 square foot of camo netting; scavenging rubbish from the Vegas streets in the early hours of the morning for our booth (for which we later win a 'best in show' award); playing frisbee in the desert; driving to LA for the world's first War on Terror tournament and starting a fight between Princess Leia and Catwoman on Hollywood Boulevard. If that weren't enough, we also secured American distribution and received a glowing review in Playboy. Shout of the month goes to Mr Bill Gilman who single-handedly conceived of and arranged the WoT Tournament. You're a legend, Bill.

May 07 - War on Terror sells out in the US. We have to rush some of our UK stock over the seas to keep America in sufficient terror.

June 07 - We start work on the 2nd print run of War on Terror. Although we'd really like to tweak the rules a bit and bring out a 2nd edition, time constraints mean that we have to leave the game intact. We do, however, make provisions for a new, improved, lightweight balaclava.

August 07 - the game achieves a modicum of geek culture status by appearing on the set of Channel 4's hit sitcom the IT Crowd. We also attend our second game convention - Gencon UK in Reading and plant WMDs around campus.

September 07 - the game officially launches in the USA, available to distributors and retailers for the first time. Preorders go mental.

October 07 - back home, more and more shops are joining the coalition of the willing and are backing the War on Terror. The ICA, the political cartoon gallery, Nog Gallery and the Socialist Bookshop are among the welcome new recruits.

November 07 - just when it looks like all the obstacles are behind us and things are finally on the rise for TerrorBull Games, we're dealt the cruellest blow yet. Nope, we can't tell you any more yet, but it's a Motherbitch and it almost bankrupt us.

So there you have it, a weird, bewildering, funny and frustrating 12 months. We've gone from not knowing anything about publishing board games to selling 7,000 games worldwide. We've been on Arab TV, Colombian radio and lauded by Playboy and Amnesty International alike. War on Terror is now on sale in games shops, book shops, army and navy stores and art galleries in Europe, North America and Australia - and it's all been caught on camera for what will probably be a rather amusing film some day soon. You might think we're joking, but we're not really sure how we did it, Part of the answer is that we've done it with an awful lot of help and now's as good a chance as any to say thanks to all those people who have supported over the past year, whether it be some kind words of encouragement, or something more substantial, we're grateful to everyone for their help and of course everyone who has bought and played the game. We couldn't do it without you, thank you.

But now we've ended on a cliff-hanger. What will become of TerrorBull Games? It's like a soap opera, isn't it? Like any good drama series, you'll just have to tune in next time and find out ...

... and as the label in the evil balclava says, Play Nice!