This is reflected in the graphics, less inspired by ancient designs than current comic style. Several questions arise with regard to this material: what image of Classical Antiquity is painted here, which sources do game designers and illustrators use for the information and the iconography? In recent games, Antiquity is treated more as science fiction or heroic fantasy than as a component of our historic past.

Ancient mythology, warfare, politics (in particular of the Roman republic), economy, and the circus races are the themes preferred. The choice of Ancient Greece and Rome is in keeping with a general interest in historical or pseudohistorical subjects: games about Ancient Egypt, the Vikings, the Middle ages, and the Orient are also available. The target audience for these games are normally adolescents and young adults. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures-most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”Īlert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music.Since the beginning of the millennium, more than 500 board, card, and table games about Ancient Greece and Rome have been commercialized in Europe, more than twice the number with respect to the last two decades of the twentieth century. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession-then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists.

The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.

Hercules by Geraldine McCaughrean