Board games, like so many hobbies, has a lot of niches. One of the oldest would have to be historical war games, which is something I really have never explored. Those games always looked so bland to me on the table, with their maps and soldiers represented by various tokens and markers. Plus, as a video gamer, I had already seen enough adaptations of yet another World War II battle so I didn’t really have a desire to play as the General and move troops into battle to their demise.
But for some reason, when Votes for Women popped up on Kickstarter a few years ago, in my haze of backing ALL THE THINGS, I supported it. The idea of a game about the suffragette movement was intriguing - how could one make this part of history an engaging story and engaging game?
Well, even though I’ve only played a full solo game once, I have to say I think Tory Brown pulled it off. Not only did I enjoy the back-and-forth, push-and-pull of the gameplay, the flavor text on the card components made me a learn a lot about this time in history. This was not a simple discussion on expanding women’s rights and then having it happen…there is a reason this game was nominated as a “war game” in the awards category.
I played solo mode, as the suffragettes vs the Automa. I’m not sure how I would feel playing this as 1v1 with another human who had to play as the anti-suffragette movement…or if I could stomach taking on that role. Even though the core of the game is area control, a standard of the genre, reading the snippets of text on each card, telling you the ideologies of the pro and con parties involved… yeesh. Just like today, people had a lot of ignorant things to say and it is documented (See, we don’t need TikTok to find out people are awful…)
It’s terrifying to watch how quickly the political tide can turn - with the states filling up with cubes representing support and watching others be eliminated. You can see the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” come to live as you flip over a card and read the text about the kind of propaganda that was spread to put down this movement.
The final round of the game, you have the 19th amendment put to the vote and place the red “X” and the green “check” to see who won the game. Again, terrifying and stressful to see the suffrage movement teetering on one state’s decision to come along.
Do I recommend this game? Yes, 100%. The game itself is fantastic, tenese, and has a lot of strategy. You can play solo, 1v1 or co-op! And I think it is hard to NOT learn something along the way, as each card is filled with images and text from the time; each token is modeled after a the suffrage or anti-suffrage buttons worn by those that lived at the time.
And (sadly) the topic is still relevant when it comes to a healthy democracy, one that still struggles with issues of voter suppression even now. Maybe even more relevant than re-enacting the battles from the World Wars? Because the battlefield of 1848-1920 was a social one, each engagement not about who was alive at the end, but how managed to sway the crowd to their side.
There’s a few days left to suppor the 2nd printing of this award-winning game. If you’re looking to finally add a historical game to your board game collection, this is a solid entry and one that friends who are not board gamers might even be willing to try.