Freedom: The Underground Railroad - Shut Up & Sit Down Review

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First published on Nov 21, 2013.

[@spenner2]

I think it speaks to Paul's (and others') integrity that they feel the way they do with the game. Yes, there are many games dealing with horrific themes, but most of those can also be abstracted to generic "war" where there's at the same time a romantic and heroic element attached. With something like slavery, the romance of it either doesn't exist or feels dirty itself, like there's something dark bubbling under the surface of this "just a game". I imagine it'd be like if a game like this were themed with the Holocaust, or perhaps playing Memoir '44 with someone with strong German heritage. I'm glad the game has the undertones it does and that many of the reviewers I've seen don't shy away from it. Bravo, SU&SD for your treatment of this. You won my subscription before with your humor and quality reviews, but you won my respect with your honesty and dedication here.

[@Solinaru]

Well said! +

[@Cpt_nice]

Hear hear

[@notjux]

I feel like in western Europe especially, a lot of the weight of slavery and segregation are viewed in a more abstract way because they don't hit quite so close to home. It's really refreshing to see that people who have never known anyone who experienced it first hand can still feel such intense empathy.

[@apostateant]

Great review, Paul. Very respectful handling of a delicate subject.

[@TraceofHatred]

Still one of your greatest and most fair reviews in my opinion.

[@Isaac27]

I played this game last year, and I'd describe it more as co-op chess. Sure, the theme is of slavery, but the game itself is really fun. I did find, though, that one or two people would end up controlling the board and others would just be along for the ride, so not the greatest co-op game. However, it still felt really fun to bring slaves to freedom. We won, but just barely, and that just adds to the tension of the game. I haven't played it since, but it was definitely enjoyable, and, TBH, I prefer it to Pandemic, just because I am very logical, and this game is very logic based (no random events that make it impossible for everyone, etc.). Overall, it's not the greatest game, but it's fun and challenging, and worth picking up.

[@MisterChris1978]

My husband (who happens to be African American) and I played Freedom with a few friends a couple of years ago. We have only played it once and it remains in our collection. Incredibly immersive, indeed it made for some uncomfortable moments. We actually "won", strange even calling it that. I definitely suggest it to people who enjoy thinky, strategic, euroesque games. And it should be essential in everything American history classroom.

[@andy4an]

It is a very challenging problem to solve. seems like forcing it on people is a step too far. that said, I'm thrilled to have gotten to experience the highs and lows of this game. usually not fun, but makes for some very introspective moments, as well as cheers of victory, and groans of failure.

[@MisterChris1978]

weesh was someone suggesting forcing it on people?

[@andy4an]

The only sentence I disagreed with was: "And it should be essential in everything American history classroom."

[@MisterChris1978]

weesh how do see a negative in suggesting it's use as an instructional tool in a class room? Surely you don't see this as propaganda?

[@andy4an]

there is a big difference between "this could be used as an instructional tool in a classroom" (which I agree with) and "it should be essential in every American history classroom" (which is too strong) The game is far too hard to be a ubiquitous requirement. I suspect that maybe we are on the same page, and you were just engaging in a bit of light hyperbole in your original post?

[@bankuei]

I'm glad you acknowledged the problematic point of having cubes to represent people in this case. I feel like I'd be less squicked if they chosen either a wooden person figures or printed tokens with people illustrated on it, since... dehumanization is exactly the problem. This is especially highlighted with the illustrations of the slavers on the board - you have some people illustrated as people...and others just as cubes.

[@jcfmansson9243]

bankuei The designer has spoken about this and said that the wooden cubes were deliberately chosen as they saw most other options as more problematic. Both abolitionists and slaves are portrayed as people in the rules, on the cards etc.. The rulebook contains historical description and there is a teacher's guide available that shows how to use the game to teach students about slavery. There definitely are different ways of portraying this period of history, but Academy games definitely did their best to do so in as respectful and comprehensive a way as possible.

[@andy4an]

I've played the game twice now, and let me tell you, it is hard to NOT think of them as people. You bond with them, especially as they get close to Canada. Each time you put a cube in canada, you feel excited for that person. and when you put a cube in the lost slaves grid, you feel the weight of the failure. The fact that they are little tan cubes was just fine.

[@poo3922]

I mean, they probably did it to reduce costs, there are tons of board game that use cubes or other abstract shapes to represent people and none of those are called out for “dehumanization”.

[@BoscoBlood]

I really think you guys need to play Black Orchestra so. It has a solid design (more solid than this one probably) and you can learn tons of history from it. Event cards are a lot in numbers, they are all illustrated, and with flavor text. It is a very challenging Coop experience, and also educational.

[@Sorrigan]

Great review and excellent handling of the sensitivity of the subject material. It should be high praise that the game can even illicit such a dreadful response. As a thought experiment, would the game change if the subject matter was smuggling Jews out of Poland circa 1941?

[@kitcarpo4745]

Thank you Paul. The reviews I watched only lightly touched on the germane subject at hand. You made the point the best.

[@bchamness6]

Really appreciate this review. Keep up the awesome work.

[@leighfoulkes7297]

Sounds like a game you can only feel a victory if you save all the slaves but freeing them all is impossible.

[@mrjbroots]

Thank you. Well done.

[@Triskitout]

lol, the song that plays at the end of the trains video was a hint to this one

[@rentellironwood6361]

Great review, and I yes your funny reviews are nice but sometime a harder look like you did on this one is in order. Thou it is a game it is important to remember that should we forget the horrible things we did in the past we are doomed to do them again one thing about games like this it allows us to work together or against each other but it can also educate.

[@leighjohnson3720]

Great review Paul and a thought provoking game

[@crepusculo1027]

This was Paul's best review

[@mikeyoung9810]

Thoughtful review. Good job.

[@andy4an]

I've played this game twice now. The first game was just atrocious. I'd lost 6 rounds into the 8 rounds, so I quit. It was a very interesting match, as I'd had to make very difficult decisions, including which slave I would allow to be lost. It felt really sick to abandon the slaves still on the board. The second game was a challenging puzzle, but we were able to finish the victory conditions by turn 4! But that didn't mean we were done! We pulled out all the stops to save as any people as possible, overshooting the mark by like 4-5. The difference was the strength of the abolitionists we pulled, and the strength of the opposition cards we pulled. There is a big power level difference between the stronger and weaker ones. One abolitionist might only save you $1, but another halves the cost of a support token. And Harriet Tubman is OP as fuck. Furthermore, an opposition card can be completely backbreaking, or be so weak that you can just let it sit around doing it's thing. I'm very glad to have purchased it. You definitely bond with the escapees, especially as they start getting close to Canada. There was one point where we had to choose between the one guy about to get captured, and a mega fundraising turn that would allow us to support the whole cause. It really hurt, but we threw the one guy to the wolves. There are tons of impactful decisions, and you really do feel the weight of the people you are helping. If you can pick it up for a reasonable cost, you should do so.

[@JuguetesyFun]

Amazing video!!!well done!!!:)

[@andy4an]

such a shame that these reprise videos are often for games that are very hard to find at a reasonable price.

[@crcurran]

Tabletop Simulator

[@denysbeecher5629]

Do I get my great, great, great, great aunt's card for free?

[@andy4an]

who was it?

[@andy4an]

What a bold game. yikes. Games should do more of this.

[@samuelconsolatti-welch5876]

What about New England or New York? People are evacuating there to according to the map

[@sampersonguy5337]

This video was weird, it was missing a certain su&sd quality and I didn’t figure it out till half way through, there was no humor, and that’s probably the best way to do this video. Nice job guys!

[@finnkrogstad2541]

Games about stabbing or beating or even slaughtering people by the thousand are just fine, but games including slaves, even if you are freeing them, provokes deep moral introspection.

[@andy4an]

it isn't the subject matter, but how they are treated. if you are forced to choose between saving this slave, or that one, you are likely to experience some introspection.

[@finnkrogstad2541]

But if you are playing a game in which you send thousands of people to die, or slaughter a city, that apparently causes no similar introspection?

[@andy4an]

Finn, sadly, it often does not. when the numbers get big enough, people have trouble humanizing them. I mean, they could, if designed well, or if a certain type of player is playing them. But yeah, a generic shooter where you kill a thousand guys isn't going to cause introspection in most people. Spec Ops: the line, is an example of a game where you kill a ton of people, and the game designers force that to cause introspection on you, rather than waiting for the player to do it on their own. One of the things Spec Ops does is force you to walk through areas you carpet bomb. if you bomb an area blindly, you might have to walk past the burned figures of a mom corpse holding a child corpse. Yeah, you just killed 150 people, but what humanizes it is the mom and child, and the realization that all those people were hiding non-combatants that you thought were soldiers, but didn't check.

[@jonnyramsden1161]

Yeah it's messed up - there's part of our culture that tries to teach us that war is ok (or even fun), to not think about the consequences and just generally accept it. Thankfully slavery isn't treated like this anymore, although the way people are treated under global capitalism in some places probably isn't far off and you can be sure that Western armies would come out to help out our 'Allies' if there were forces trying to improve the lot of those people. In a lot of parts of the global capitalist economy people have very few rights and are paid very little and might face death if they tried to improve their lot (eg by striking). People are still treated like pawns but the worst excesses now happen abroad away from Western eyes and war is often a way of maintaining that exploitation. We're taught to accept war and the justifications for it and then can feel good about ourselves because we condemn slavery and support 'freedom'

[@davedogge2280]

a touchy subject and I think it may be Black History Month in the U.S. now yet it is no.1 in the American Civil War games on bgg so I dunno maybe I will get this there is more to just war during that period and as good as For The People and Battle Cry are..

[@MURD3R3D]

I've always wanted to comment on a KZbin video

[@WanderingKumquat]

Same

[@finnkrogstad2541]

Has someone posted a how-to showing how we might start?

[@crcurran]

I've always wanted to comment on someone who commented on a KZbin video.

[@Rynewulf]

Its nice to play as heroes for once and not the enslaving colonising imperialist war machine

[@Kraigon42]

Why do I feel like I've watched this video already? Was it on the Escapist or something?

[@andy4an]

SUSD used to be on youtube, but the channel hosting them kicked them off, so they moved to another site. now that they are back on youtube, they have been migrating the old videos back on here, one at a time. open the description to see when it originally aired.

[@Kraigon42]

I think you missed my second question. I only found SU&SD within the last half a year; I've only found traces of where they were other than this channel, but I am certain I watched this somewhere else. Considering I've found their reviews on two other channels, the Escapist being one of them, I imagined it must have been on there, but I do not know.

[@andy4an]

ah, i thought "or something" might have been their website, or vimeo. doesn't surprise me that they would ahve some videos on escapist though

[@Kraigon42]

After I posted that I realized I was a little more hostile than I intended to be. Sorry, just got off a long day of work. Point was that it was a mostly rhetorical question and I'd rather know what other channels this video might be on where I would have seen it within the last few months.

[@BigDickChungles]

How did you manage to lose Pandemic after two turns?!?

[@willrfrench]

BigDickChungles recursive outbreaks

[@dotdotdotdesign]

Many games draw on horrific themes, from wars to deaths to pandemics and so on. One of the best selling video games right now if Battlefield 1 based on the incomprehensible human catastrophe that was World War 1. If you don't feel squeamish about those games, then I don't think you should feel uncomfortable playing a game where you free slaves.

[@Princely_Crow]

I think some other people in the coments, and even Paul himself, have mentioned this idea, but I feel the need to restate it. In games like Battlefield, there is a kind or romance and abstraction from reality that lets us enjoy these kinds of games. Most of the first video games are about war because humans just love conflict in media, we romanticize war stories (reasonably so, they are very intersting and influential parts of history) but slavery and the underground railroad doesnt have this attachment to the same romanticism as war does, and as paul said, the unsettling way that the mechanics sort of convince you to treat the "slave" game pieces in the same way that actual slavers did real humans can, in my opionion, rightfully make someone uncomfortable.

[@gqsnowman]

Do you often consciously choose not to feel a certain way? And yes, World War 1 was really horrific, but there is a distinct difference between a war where both sides are fighting and slavery where one group of people was completely subjugated and dehumanized (putting it VERY mildly) by another.

[@andy4an]

This game wasn't uncomfortable to me until I had to choose between which slave to save. Do I save the guy that has already taken two steps towards freedom, or the guy that never had a taste of freedom? It got increasingly uncomfortable when I realized I was flooding the south with slaves so that I could have a big fundraising turn. It was the MOST uncomfortable when, after realizing I couldn't win the first game, I stopped playing, giving up rather than just trying to save as many as I could. Discomfort is not something you choose. It is something that you feel or not depending on your circumstances.

[@jonnyramsden1161]

I think the reason is because slavery is a less inspected part of our history (in UK and probably USA). Generally history that is popularised tells a story about being the good guys in some way whereas that definitely wasn't the case with slavery. Somehow we even manage to do that about WW1 which realistically was a war that was more or less about the different European imperial powers jostling for position, the politicians of the time thought nothing of sending millions to their deaths for the good of the empires (eg for the continued robbery and exploitation of people in other countries).

[@shanecybowicz1077]

Firstly, another great review. Now I personally wouldn't buy this game. I do appreciate the educational element but I'd find it hard to justify having fun based on the evil things that went on just a couple of generations ago. Games are no doubt a great way to teach/learn if played in the right environment but themes like this, for me, take away from the enjoyment of playing. I think themes that remind you of an oppressive history sets your mind to a serious mode of thought, a mode of thought that you're trying to escape by gaming in the first place!

[@andy4an]

Yes, the game isn't the most "fun". There is fun, and there is a thrill to cracking the puzzle... The core engagement of most games is fun. But there are many other possible core engagements that are satisfying. This is an emotionally heavy game, that forces you to make very difficult decisions. You are engaged as hell, but it is with the urgency to save lives. To say you won't buy a game because it isn't fun is fair enough. But to avoid all games that aren't fun, even if they are engaging in other emotions could stop you from experiencing some absolutely incredible games. Another game that isn't fun, but incredibly engaging is "Spec Ops: the Line". this game made me feel sick, and want to vomit. Not because it was gory, but because I realized that my mistakes had had disastrous consequences, and the game wasn't going to let me get away with passing them by without a thought. It was definitely worth the experience, but wow was it awful in the moment.

[@shanecybowicz1077]

I get what you're saying. As an overall experience it probably is very engaging and deep. I just find the idea of what happened back then a little sickening and would rather not include it in my gaming! Give me a bit of Eldritch/Arkham horror anyday! :)

[@andy4an]

Shane Cybowicz Amusingly, Eldritch Horror games are a line I don't want to cross! I probably hate being scared in the same way that you want to avoid the most serious dark historical faire. A game for me, a game for you, etc.

[@richthe1]

why didn't they use mahogany...

[@Mario_Malatesta]

Another reason why i've fallen in love with this channel, this review actually moved me almost to tears. I would love to try this game and grasp it emotional drive.

[@kkirT]

It's always a bit of a masturbatory experience when "woke" people talk about the American slave trade. Yes, it was a dark time in history and people are affected by it today, but it has been practically abolished in the West except for highly illegal, highly hunted human traffickers. Board games can never approach a subject in a way that is respectful on the level of movies, music or books so don't act like this game is anything but a light, easily digested way for people to approach a subject that they would otherwise look away from. Instead of being somber and pretending that it carries a heavy burden on our hearts today, praise it for raising awareness on a historical issue that could easily be forgotten by those who can't stand hearing about human suffering.

[@kkirT]

Do you mean the old, abolished system of slavery in the West or the modern, active slave trade in Africa, Asia and South America?

[@MisterChris1978]

So you are suggested that those emotionally affected by this game are being self indulgent ?

[@MisterChris1978]

supermot34 you can be emotionally effected by it and enjoy the game. I think you misunderstood my meaning.

[@kkirT]

A board game is an artwork the same way a stand-up routine is an artwork. Neither can handle topics like slavery, war, or genocide with tact and grace. That doesn't mean that they should never cover those subjects, just that they will always offend some people when they do.

[@kkirT]

No, I'm saying that I don't think these big youtube reviewers that keep harping on about the theme of this particular game actually feel that emotional about it, but they all know subconsciously that you're supposed to signal loudly that you do. I don't feel shit when I pick up a card or a cube representing a fictional person representing someone who might have actually suffered hundreds of years ago and I don't think I'm abnormal in that sense. Play the game or don't, enjoy the game or don't, just get off that high horse of being so damn empathetic.