Meta-Rules and Complicity in Brenda Brathwaite's Train

Train, a board game designed and produced by Brenda Brathwaite (2009), is an unusual game in many regards. It is a game that reliably elicits feelings of complicity in its players with a tragic human event from history. It does this by using the technique of taking advantage of players and audience members expectations about the meta-rules around games and conflating them with the meta-rules of our society. In this paper, I will introduce the game Train, briefly explain the concept of meta-rules and their importance to our understanding of game design and game studies, and examine in detail the particular meta-rules that are utilized in Train to create emotional resonance in all who encounter it. Through this close reading of one game, I will show how the meta-rules around games can be effectively taken advantage of to produce projects that force our own internal examinations of our relationships with tragic events and society at large.