I’ve contemplated this a bit and I while I’ve certainly repeated this thought, I now see it a bit differently. Spirit Island isn’t anti-colonialism. It’s counter-colonialism; and it’s the worst possible presentation of it: just like many games with colonial themes, Spirit Island removes agency from from the Dahan and grants it to fantastical non-humans. The Dahan are a pawn in someone else’s game 
All of that may be redeemed by the oft-teased but yet-unreleased Dahan-centric expansion
I do hope so, but sounds like the dahan expansion will likely be more gods like Thunderspeaker who move around/control the dahan as part of their central plan.
Well - actual history, sadly, would suggest that most indigenous populations were doomed without having some spirits on their side…
And don’t forget that the Dahan themselves were once the new arrivals who the spirits didn’t like one bit.
Thoughts on the Review
I really took Verde’s first comment to heart. I watched (most) of the video. I’m a white American. I do have the advantage that my wife’s grandmother grew up under literal colonial rule (Japan) and her parents experienced the arrival of another colonial force (Chinese KMT). I do not truly understand their experiences. I hear stories. I see them today and what it has made them. The process of learning is really about learning how big, and how foreign to me, the unknown is.
But I see anger. Grief. Frustration. Shame. Loss. I can’t articulate it here any better than they could articulate it to me.
But I did get wildly frustrated by Tom’s extended diatribe. I wouldn’t take issue with much anything that he said. But he went on and on, speaking as if with understanding and authority, and then with closure, about a narrow slice of the actual experience, or system, or whatever it is. You can misrepresent something even while not saying anything incorrect.
I don’t know if that is anything like what bothered Verde as well. It’s my best attempt to articulate why I started to feel this just stop talking feeling as he hit the same points over and over, harder and harder.
This hits harder if you are British
I can understand that. For me, JoCo (and Archipelago) are fascinating objects. They attempt to faithfully lay out all the pieces and allow you to explore and experience, and therefore understand better, these things that happened.
As an American, if someone gave me the chance to explore chattel slavery through that medium, I would not. I could not play a game about running southern plantations, managing the economics and enslaved workforce no matter how it treated or approached the subject. I need to come to grips with those things via other mediums. Talk to an old Black man for a start.
On Spirit Island
I like this as a game. I appreciate the comments here. For a long time I feel like I’ve been the only voice who rejects the thesis that it “fixes colonialism in games.” And you hear that in reviews and on reddit and such. It’s a cartoon and nothing more. Better than, say, Santa Maria of course, but no thesis for the hobby.
Dog Eat Dog
This piece, Brendan Caldwell/SUSD on Dog Eat Dog, has long stuck with me. About a game that does put people on both sides and explore the topic in visceral terms. And the account of an Irishman playing with British friends.
This piece does capture the anger, and grief, and shame I see in my wife’s side of the family. I cry when I read it. And helps me to see how the system and its effects persist. We can’t just “be on the right side of history,” by calling past evils evil and giving our country’s version of the middle finger to people who don’t vocally agree with us. What was destroyed remains destroyed, and there is grief in that. What was taken is still taken, our countries are still resting on the old pedestals built by slavery and colonialism. The wounds feel too big to heal. But there is still room for grief and humililty, some compassion, and maybe some chances to serve in our own turn.
What Spirit Island does do is change the perspective of the player away from that of the European colonial powers, who are unquestionably the enemy in the game. I think that qualifies it as ‘anti-colonialist’ - certainly in the context of mainstream board games.
What it doesn’t do is put the players in the position of the Dahan. So shouldn’t any criticism (if that’s even the right word?) be not that it isn’t ‘anti-colonialist’ - more that it isn’t as explicitly ‘indigenous-positive’ as people want it to be?
I hadn’t managed to find a way to explain my feelings about this aspect of the video - and now I don’t need to, because you have expressed it perfectly.
I am British (English even, which is probably what counts in this), and white, but I don’t find this. All my great-grandparents were basically peasants. They were emphatically not the people, or the descendants of the people, who were profiting from the East India Company - they were the descendants of the ones who the people who were profiting from the East India Company had been trampling on since 1066.
So “Anti-colonialist” rather than “Anti-colonialism”?
Possibly! It’s definitely anti-colonialist, but from the point of view of the island itself. The spirits aren’t all that concerned what happens to the Dahan; their concern is for the island itself. So yes, it isn’t really about the colonising of the Dahan’s civilization at all.
And I don’t think it either set out or claims to be, so I’m not sure about criticism of it for not being.
I will be fascinated to see if the rumoured ‘Dahan-centric’ expansion comes to anything. Having looked (briefly) at some of the designer’s comments about it, it’s clear that his intentions at least are good.
(It is not: even you opt to get rich purely by grafting off of “peaceful” trade, and the dice and India happen to let you do this, which is far from given, even “peaceful” trade is transparently one-sided, the game making this clear by, for example, Company writers dying if they happen to be where turmoil occurs. It’s not that there is a possibility of them dying, they just die. It’s also not a choice any one player can make in isolation.)
Aargh! This is making me want this game! What’s it like solo?
In general thanks for this discussion all. I think previously having asked about Puerto Rico here I think I didn’t articulate myself well and learnt a lot. Was always worried I came across not very well but in the mean time I have learnt and I think here many of you have articulated better than I can many things around this topic. I think I’ll stay open to possibly being wrong and keep listening as well as running my typing mouth off. I also would be interested to hear from any dissenting voices on stuff said here, we can all learn and improve but that requires questioning I think.
Whereas I was just about to post that I agree it DOES hit harder if you’re British 
Or it can, anyway.
I’m glad that the attitude on the forum is one of wanting to do the right thing, and wondering if SUSD are telling this the right way etc. I also want that, but I had a different reaction to lots of the folks above and I’ve just gotta assume I’m missing something.
Part of it for me is that I wouldn’t dream of being a voice talking about American slavery for example, but the EIC 1700s period vs India is not complicated by comparison. It’s very simple, and some Brits do have their own feelings about it (or specifically England vs India, as almost no-one has real education on the EIC).
Just a note that there’s some mildly heavy stuff coming up:
I’ve spoken to British-Indian friends and colleagues whose families were affected by India under the British Empire in the last century. They have family histories that are unpleasant to hear. Worse, there are friends of their friends whose grandfather had trauma every time he saw things that looked like English military uniforms, on account of what the English military did to his entire village that day. This was less than 100 years ago, and those families are now living in England, so yeah. Some Brits feel differently about England-India than other parts of Empire history.
And some have no feelings about it at all, because it’s just like BertFill says above: this was people a million times richer than us in a time before we were born (and in the case of the game, 1700s) and the poor in Britain suffered under those same people so it’s hard to feel any kind of link to them.
My 78 year-old father has sometimes tried to point out the “good” in Empire, or at least argue that blaming Churchill directly for the 1943 Bengal Famine is unfair (this came up in response to Churchill getting a movie a few years back and the internet reminding people he wasn’t a saint). The details of individual topics like that might be more complicated. The East India Company in the 1700s being there for profit and doing endless violence is not. (And I’m not interested in trying to see a theoretical good side of any system where the resources of another country go to London and London decides what to do with them. It’s a non-starter).
So maybe it’s part generational and maybe its part geographical but I wasn’t at all surprised when Tom described his friends’ reactions. I also didn’t think during watching the video that Tom went too far or doesn’t have a right to be the voice telling how some Brits feel, or that it comes from a place of assuming anything as a white guy on behalf of the groups affected when only they should be talking instead. (But having seen other people’s posts above, I’m open to being wrong on that).
I would automatically think all of that about many similar colonial discussions, but to me EIC and India is not complicated. Tom’s other player who found the game “disgusting” could just be reacting to the idea of the persona you take on in the game doing that to any group, but for some Brits India is a different case that they’re actually closer to.
I’m happy to sit back and listen though, because several people have posted saying that they felt Tom needed to stop talking, so I’m going to assume I’m missing something. I thought he was sticking to facts and doing a good service of educating folk who wouldn’t otherwise be reached and didn’t try to speak for anyone else, erase voices or do anything problematic, but clearly others have felt it was a bit off.
On the game itself I like to think I’d have the detachment to play a satire where the EIC are shown so clearly as grotesque selfish monsters and the bad guys, highlighting the injustice of the time, especially when that’s very clearly written out in full by the designers and very historically accurate, but I’m also 100% with Tom’s long raspberry to people who insist on that detachment.
People like it, apparently. I found it pretty unengaging solo - it’s a game about negotiation, after all.
Me too, but I’m not yet convinced I missed anything significant. I think there’s some disconnect, like some people found Tom didactic or something, while I didn’t, and I suspect that’s down to cultural or perspective differences, and not necessarily because someone else picked up on something important that I missed.
Different reactions to the same content are fine, and conversation about it can be interesting. Doesn’t mean either camp has to be wrong.
I haven’t tried it yet. It feels like a heavy lift to learn the rules, and then the solo mode, to, essentially, start arguing with a bot.
Also, while many people absolutely adore the output of Ricky Royal, I find that his video format is completely unwatchable (which is a problem with me, not him, I’m sure).
Prior to watching this video, I had not realized that RTFM had made a video; I do intend to check that out because RTFM really simplified the process of learning Root recently
Thanks for that - I’ll give Ricky a go. I actually quite enjoy his videos! (And I’d never have figured out how Robinson Crusoe worked without him, and I love that game).
I think this will probably end up being a game i really want to love, but, don’t. If so, I hope I find that out before I buy it this time…!
I think the anti-colonialism is largely local contrast: before SI, games of this sort would be framed as “you are protecting the peaceful villagers from the onslaught of scary non-human monsters” (e.g. Castle Panic or Ghost Stories), and SI was the game that said “actually, a whole bunch.of invading destructive hordes have been white dudes”.
Not just white dudes! White man made plastic dudes, and the locals are natural wood tokens. It’s really quite deep
(If I see someone wax lyrical on that one more time… Haha)
Managed to watch the video. Without being white British, but being white Spanish, I can see where the pain comes from. On the other hand, I think there could be a lesson there to many of those who are boasting about the British Empire… sadly, it is likely to be missed.
I can completely sympathise with anybody who doesn’t want to play the game due to its theme being raw. And on this occasion, it is even more evident how the EIC actually was using India as a playfield for their own purposes and lower instincts. On the other hand, I cannot stop myself from wanting to give it a go, at least once?
I did play Puerto Rico, a couple of times, actually, and I admit the experience required me to make a bit of an extra effort to overtake the implicit questionable resources being used. And I enjoy kicking colonists arses a lot when playing Spirit Island. Both are representations of really cruel acts, but somehow one feels a bit more vindicated when defending from white plastic.
On the other hand, games about Industrial Revolution, train building, or ancient Empires where slavery was everyday bread and butter do not get the same amount of criticism (looking at you, Rome). Within reason, they should get it too. I think Tom makes a fair point using Undaunted as a reference. Do I mind playing as the Germans on that game? No. Did they commit atrocities in that war? Yes. Do I understand how my mate Ben (he is German) does not want to play it, but cannot wait to get the game based on a sci-fi them? Absolutely.
All good points.
But I would say that John Company differs from most of those games in one important way.
While many games are set in ancient Rome, or WW2, or any number of other ancient civilizations or wars, and dreadful things were done in those times and places, not many of the games are actually representing those dreadful things. They’re just set when those things happened.
In John Company you are actually doing the dreadful things (ok, you’re not actually, you’re playing a game and moving bits around a board…).
A game where Julius Caesar’s armies systematically and explicitly slaughtered Gaulish peasants, or where players simulated the logistics of planning the Final Solution (hey, it would be partly a train game!) would, I imagine, get every bit as much attention and criticism. Obviously - I hope to god - that second game would never be made, but it does show what an interesting and difficult question it is: is there a point where it really isn’t ‘just a game,’ and if so where is that point? What are acceptable topics for games, and what aren’t?