Replaying the Lost Battles

The Experience of Failure in Polish History-Themed Board

Abstract

The article aims to analyse ideological aspects of depicting failed historical battles in games in order to reflect on the game medium’s potential to depict events conventionally regarded as tragic. This is shown through the case studies of two Polish history-themed board games (Little Insurgents and 7 Days of Westerplatte). The procedural arguments formed in the games are analysed and checked for consistency with their representational layers. The ideological aspects of the games are shown in terms of the dominant Polish politics of memory (the cultural practices of selecting past events as worth remembering by the community and attributing certain values to them).