Trench Board Game Stymies Xbox 360 Game

Jul 1, 2011

Trenched is a WWI Xbox 360 video game developed by Double Fine. The game is getting good reviews but it may be a long while before many of our friends across the pond get a chance to play. The problem has to do with copyright laws. There is a board game called Trench, which is also a WWI game, developed by a Portugese board game designer Rui Alípio Monteiro. He has held the copyright on the name since 2007 which covers both board and video games. While I cheer the right for the board game designer to protect his copyright, the board game itself is a little too abstract for my taste. It looks like something you might see sitting on a coffee table over at Ikea.

There is a video of the game on the designers website, which is way abstract in itself. A soundtrack of gunshots and WWI reel clips mixed in with photos of the game board with its square black and white stacked pieces. Lot of head scratching going on in this corner, let me tell you.

Overall this means that there may be a long delay until the copyright issues are settled and Trenched can be released in Europe. Interestingly, there is another WWI combat game called Trench that was released in 1975 by Tabletop games. Can’t we go for some variety? Maybe “Bunker” or “No Man’s Land”.

Here’s a description of the board game, you really need to see the video on the website:

TRENCH, the thematic and abstract new “Strategy versus Tactics Game” adds an extra concept to the ancient and traditional board games.

Framed in a modern design and attractive presentation, captivating and contagious in the singular way it is played, this game turns out to be funny and magnetizing, plus every challenge always has a winner.

The board is lozenge – shaped, a hundred per cent black and white, showing clear contrast and superposition and emphasis on two lines in the horizontal, suggesting the trenches. Its pieces invariably consist of geometric figures in the purest Cubism style, of a unique artistic and aesthetic beauty, symbolising a soldiers’ classic confrontation in definite battlefields, from the soldier to the general on top of the pyramid of power. The set of basic, practical and well-defined rules transforms this abstraction game into a unique unforgettable moment – “Everything you can imagine is real”. (Pablo Picasso)

Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” principles are recalled as they are applied to the algorithm of the game, melting cultures together between the West and the East.

More than a military book, The Art of War is considered a philosophic book. Its principles may be applied not only to tactics but also to almost every branch of human activity.

TRENCH subject matter and timeless character give the game the ability and versatility of adapting easily to historic and regional variations yet according to principles which are widespread all over the world.