I read the back of the box for some context. I am holding a two player game from GMT called Red Flag Over Paris: 1871, The Rise & Fall of the Paris Commune. It is emblazoned with the colors of the French flag and a detail from a painting by Georges Clairin. Sure that I can find my way out of the war games from here, I pull the box down to take a look. As I near the fluorescence of the better-illuminated areas of the basement, my hand catches against a box protruding a few inches from the shelf. I think I’m headed in the right direction. I swat at invisible mosquitos who do not disband. I will survive to see my friends, I will survive to play Blokus again. I have heard the horror stories, as we all have, of people ending up lost in war gaming forever.

Unable to see in the darkness, I stagger forward with my hand running along the shelf, both for stability and to make sure I don’t travel in circles.

I was looking for my copy of Blokus and tripped, running headfirst into Conquest & Consequence, which seems to have left me confused and concussed. I have become lost in the dusty, isolated, weirdly moist corner of board gaming with all the war games, those aesthetic heretics with demanding rule sets and titles like Axis of Forgiveness: The Macedonian Civil War 230-173 BCE.

Red flags board game