In CLUE-ANON, 3-4 players take on the role of conspiracy influencers in the batshit attention economy, competing to uncover nefarious conspiracies… or pursue other agendas…
Are the space aliens being funded by an evil corporation to work with the deep state to steal the election? Could satanists be in league with the military-industrial complex to abduct children, and is it being hidden by the mainstream media? And what if I told you that shadowy foreign agents are using a secret society to hire paid protesters to undermine civilization by faking the moon landing?
In this game, players use their influence to gain money and followers, and mobilize these resources to investigate the conspiracy, making guesses either secretly (which is safer) or in public (which attracts money and followers but…)
While at first it appears that all players are seeking the truth, each actually has a secret character… and their motivations are far from innocent.
True, the Independent Journalist might be seeking to learn what’s really going on and share it with the world. But the Social Media Corporation is mostly interested in how conspiracies can drive engagement and increase revenue, and the YouTube Grifter is after followers. They’re all trying to influence the True Believers while the Troll Army just delights in causing chaos. And there is a Secret Agent who really is spying on everyone.
CLUE-ANON is a delightful way to discover what makes conspiracy theories so much fun… and so dangerous.
I began working on CLUE-ANON in 2021 as part of the Conspiracy Games and Countergames research project I undertook with Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou and A.T. Kingsmith, who helped develop the game. That project also included a research podcast with experts on conspiracism, on games and on their intersections, as well as essays and interviews in public and in academic venues.
A free printable version of CLUE-ANON can be found at the Itch.io page of my gaming outfit, Our Move.
CLUE-ANON takes under an hour to learn and play and is suitable for inexperienced board game players. The print-at-home package includes everything you need to play and is free.
I am grateful to have been able to present and playtest Clue-Anon in many academic and non-academic contexts, including the “Games, incorporated” conference hosted by the journal ephemera in Malmö in June of 2022. The journal will publish CLUE-ANON soon, in conjunction with my essay “Why Play Games with Conspiracies?”, which is already online.