Santa's Elves get a crummy deal. 364 days a year spent making Labubus and Nintendo Switches, one year as the pit crew for a super sonic reindeer sled piloted by an alcoholic, and what recognition do they get? Since the classic Will Ferrell vehicle 'Elf' released in 2003, nothing. Well, in the upcoming indie roll and write board game Christmas Union, they're going to do something about it - the elves are going on strike. If this doesn't get added to our list of the best Christmas board games soon, maybe I will too (careful now - Ed.)
Christmas Union is the work of Brazilian indie board game designer and researcher Fagner Lima, whose game design work is similarly experimental. In August this year he took his performance-based game Not Funny - themed around police violence in Brazil - to the Centrale Fies performing arts centre in Italy. His strategy board game House of Wisdom - a historical game about the translation of scientific books during the Abassid Caliphate - was a finalist in the 2023 Zenobia development award, and is looking for a publisher.
Christmas Union is Lima's first crowd-funding project, and the game's Gamefound page is still in preview mode - there's no launch date yet, and the translation from Brazillian Portuguese could use some work. But the core of the game seems solid, and the integration of the theme with the mechanics seems elegant.
Your elves want to see different kinds of improvement in Santa's workshop: better pay; improved working conditions; more recognition for their work; a more solid retirement plan. Achieving these goals requires you to get the elves out of the Factory floor and into a union meeting, and then agree a plan for collective action at the Assembly.
In game terms, you'll roll 2D6 each turn. The total of the two dice gets marked into one of the four Strike columns connected to your demands; one die result goes to the Factory and moves an elf towards the meeting; and the other die determines a shape that you need to place in the Assembly, which may in turn make progress towards your goals, or mark off a specific number in a Strike column. If you can fill a row or column in the Strikes section of the board, bam, the elves down tools and you make good progress towards your goals and potentially earn victory points.
The game doesn't suggest that this organization process is straightforward. It's possible to jam up your workers in the Factory, unable to move; find yourself unable to place a tetronimo into the Assembly (which I think of as vicious factional disputes between Elves with different agendas); or unable to note down a number in the Strike column. These jams and snafus get you negative 'Oh my deer' points. Even so, there's no suggestion that collective action or striking is ever a bad thing - it's just hard to coordinate.
It certainly makes a change from Monopoly for Christmas - not just for the pro-worker theme, but because as a Roll and Write, there's no direct competition between players. A Christmas board game without an argument? How novel.
If you've got a favorite roll and write game, or can think of other successful board games with political messaging, we'd love to hear about them in the Wargamer Discord community. To keep track of Wargamer's best stories, make sure you're subscribed to our newsletter.