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The BISBEE GAME Etc.(rough draft)
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CONTENTSand RRN: Desert Edition ACCOUNTS |
Pt.1: 6 May 2004If Bisbee Is A Game, Here Are The Rules. OK that's just a title, I don't have a game yet. But a game could be constructed with players-characters-pieces such as: Miners; UDAs, Migras; Ranchers; Realtors; Old Hippies, New Hippies; Tourists, local-national and international; Retirees; Speculators; Artists; Craftspeople, Tradespeople; Cops and Troops; ETs of course and Abductees before and after. The playing field would consist of Old Bisbee, the heart of it and the elevated fringes; the mining operations; the company towns; the lowland subdivisions where development is ongoing; and the border. The viewpoint for overseeing the game could be from the Aerostat over Fort Huachuca, giving it an omnicient eye, and therefore marginal portions of the game are played in Douglas and Sierra Vista and Fort Huachuca. During play one draw HAZARD CARDS. Hazards include: sewer disconnect; flood, fire , extremes of weather; meth lab; UDAs hiding {in your garage} on your property; complaints from neighbors about trash cans, parking, blocked access, hair; capricious raising of tax and utility rates; graffiti; knife fight in a local bar or steakhouse; pizza poisoning; stray dogs and cats and ferrets and parrots and javelinas and coyotes; rockslides; an asteroid falling from the sky; UFO appearance; forced containment in the BMZ, Border Militarized Zone; conversion of Tombstone Canyon into an interstate highway; expansion of mining operations; et cetera. One way to play the game would be: coming from off the board, onto the board; going thru all the various low-lying areas of Bisbee without being stuck in any of the company towns; making regular journeys to Sierra Vista and Douglas for supplies or bureaucratic wrangling without being stopped by the Border Patrol or State Police or Army or ETs. Once in Ye Olde Bisbee the goal is to attain a residence, going thru the gauntlet of Realtors, Merchants, Panhandlers, UDAs, Cops, Burnouts, Strays, Heatstroke, Anoxia or other Hazards. A major feature on the board there should be The Pit - don't fall into The Pit - and avoid The Tailings. Don't get a residence in Ye Olde Bisbee that's accessible only by climbing 85 stairsteps. Gain or lose points depending on which bars and/or cafes you hang out at. Extra points for shooting down the Aerostat. And at the end of every year (have the play go in increments of a week maybe) - at the end of every year, the person with the most points buys drinks for all other players. The Game of Bisbee.
Maureen suggested the development of a children's or educational Game of Bisbee, elucidating historical events and features. Yah that's possible too. Yah, do both the kiddy and adult versions. But the educational version will actually require some research. Bother.
Pt.2: 7 May 2004I should mention that the Aerostat is a blimp-like balloon floating over Fort Huachuca, anchored at a special site, the signs say it's the US Air Force Aerostat Site. I imagine the Aerostat is laden with surveillance electronics, keeping an eye on everything within range - maybe even me right now as I walk thru the trees. So, the Bisbee Game - of course it would make sense to do a Tombstone Game - I didn't notice as we were looking around the bric-a-brac shops there whether there was any such - I wouldn't be surprised if some were available. I'll take another look at Tombstone, look thru the print shops, see what else they have beside absurd posters on fake parchment paper, and overpriced booklets about Wild West history. But a Tombstone-Opoly Game should be pretty to whip out, a board game. Hmm, I wonder if anyone's done shoot-em-up video games of Wild West themes. Yah, probably. There's enough little kids running around Tombstone, even on an off day, with guns and holsers, yelling and quick-drawing and shooting. There should be some market for such a vicatious thrill. And that also brings to mind collectible cards and/or playing cards - a Bisbee Historical Card Deck. That'd be a little tougher than a Tombstone Card Deck, Tombstone has so many associated images that are already in the public domain and that wouldn't be as obscure as old storefronts in Bisbee. But a Cochise County Card Deck would be fairly straightforward. The great Apache leaders, the American generals, and trappers and gamblers and outlaws, generic miners and hookers, gamblers, tavern-keepers, farmers, scouts, ghosts. The way to turn'em into a competitive game would be to work off this paradigm: Apaches have land; Miners produce gold; Soldiers, Miners, Farmers steal land from Indians; Hookers, Tavern-Keepers, Gamblers take gold from Miners; Outlaws shoot Gamblers, Tavern-Keepers, Miners, Farmers and Cowboys; Cowboys are Black, Hispanic, and White of course as are the Hookers and the Miners and the Farmers and the Outlaws. Then there's the Lawmen who shoot the Outlaws and some of the Gunmen, and the Gunmen who shoot 'most everybody. And of course some are double-tagged; some are Gambler-Gunmen, some are Outlaw-Gunmen, some are Lawmen-Gunmen. Let's see, there'll have to be cards for Mines and Land and Gold (or not Gold, in this case it's Copper but we'll call it Gold). Monopoly-like, there'll be at least one Railroad, maybe two; and stage lines. For a wild card we might have an Eastern tabloid-thriller writer churning out truth and lies about everything that's happening. And all that would be for an actual Cochise County Game. A simpler way to do it would be to have regular playing cards, but on the face of each card have the image and the story of each of these characters and locales. And if we can rummage-up enough characters and locales then there'll be multiple decks. all with the same back so they can be played together which might have a sherrif's star on it, call it Sheriff of Cochise. (There should be some folks left who remember the TV show.) Or that might be for a specialty deck that includes just the Gunmen, Lawmen, Outlaws, Bounty Hunters. And if we can't find some real Outlaws and Gunmen and Bounty Hunters then invent some. No problem. And hopefully in a few days we'll be heading over to New Mexico, and we'll be going thru Billy The Kid country, so what the hell, we can do a Billy The Kid Card Deck and Games also. But with the Cochise deck we could do multiple Cochise decks. We'd have two editions of the Sheriff Of Cochise, one with that and one with just the Cochise back. So they're collectible but also different decks would have the same back and could be played together. More items, more sales, eh? |
