Published by Frank Beat Keller, 1985
Designed by “P.M.”

A decidedly odd card game developed by the enigmatic Swiss anarchist known only as “P.M.”, author of the utopian work Bolo’Bolo: Substructing the Planetary Work Machine among others. One player represents the Grey world of concrete, conformity and profit, while the other represents the Colored world of demons, imagination and playful destruction (!).

Playing time about one hour
Period post-modern
Scales abstract

Components
1 small rule book in German, French and English
1 sheet of additions and clarifications
96 double-sided cardboard tiles
26 single-sided money tiles
4x6" black cardboard box

Counter Manifest

There are 96 double-sided tiles, 1¾” square, of thick well-cut cardboard like the standard “German” game component.

One side of each tile represents a Grey element (mobile or static), while the other side represents a Colored element (though there are nine tiles that are Grey on both sides). The artwork is what I would call crude but enthusiastic.

64 Grey mobile elements
36 workers (18 male, 18 female)
12 policemen
16 professionals
32 Grey static elements
12 businesses
8 computers
8 households
4 schools

55 Colored mobile elements
10 penguins (5 x 2, 4 x 3, 1 x 4)
4 spiders (1 x 1, 3 x 3, all 2x)
5 octopodes (2 x 2/3x, 2 x 3/2x, 1 x 2/2x)
4 chimmeras (2 x -10/3, 1 x -10/2, 1 x -20/3)
1 sphinx (-20/4)
5 devils (3 x 5, 2 x 4)
6 dragons (3 x.4, 3 x 5)
2 hydras (1 x 5, 1 x 4)
5 apes (3 x 1, 1 x 3, 1 x 0)
2 snakes (1 x 1, 1 x 2)
3 mice (3 x -10/3)
5 turtles (5 x 0)
3 cats (2 x 2, 1 x3)

32 Colored static elements
5 death (2 x black square, 2 x cross, 1 x angel)
2 explosions (starburst)
5 ruins (2 x smoking ruins, 2 burning buildings, 1 computer with an axe in it)
9 nature scenes (sea, lily, forest, etc.)
10 miscellaneous scenes (magic box, puppet theatre, palace, etc. etc.)
1 free public radio station

18 Tiles that are Grey on the reverse side instead of Colored
1 television
2 factories
2 policemen
2 professionals
1 computer
1 school

26 Money tiles: 7 x 1; 4 x 2; 2 x 5; 5 x 10; 5 x 20; 3 x 50; 2 x 100

Collector’s Value

This game is out of print and is hard to track down (less eBay bumf, please -ed). I first saw mention of it in an ad on the back of a pamphlet distributed by Autonomedia, a publishing house devoted to wacko radical Communistic literature, in the late 1980s. I acquired my copy from Marginal Distribution (www.marginalbook.com), a radical bookstore in Peterborough, Ontario (how’s that for cognitive dissonance) for about $17.00 (US). Boone contains no information on this game.

Player’s Value

The Grey player begins by selecting 200 money units of mobile and static elements, without looking at their colored sides. He arranges them in a single coherent group with the elements arranged in patterns that will maximize his profit. For example, a business tile only produces profit if it is combined with at least one worker tile, the more the better, while having a computer (with a professional tile to operate it) as part of the pattern will double the profit.

Household-plus-worker combinations produce new workers (for some reason, hooking up a computer to a household also doubles the output of children), while school-plus-professional combinations convert workers into professionals or policemen. Policemen deport or eliminate mobile Colored units, while professionals (acting as politicians, intellectuals or psychiatrists) can turn Colored elements back to their Grey sides. Grey can spend some of his profits buying new elements to add to his patterns, but he ultimately wins by accumulating profits equal to his initial investment of 200 money units.

Meanwhile, the Colored player does his best to subvert and destroy portions of the intricate socioeconomic machine Grey has built. He begins by turning over one or more mobile Grey elements and can, to a limited extent, move some of his mobile Colored elements. There are 19 different types of Colored elements, each with different effects. Typically these consist of turning over or removing Grey elements, or preventing static Grey elements from functioning.

If the Colored player’s actions separate the Grey “machine” into two or more groups, then the smaller groups are removed from the game. If the Colored player can turn over all mobile Grey elements, or prevent Grey from making any profit for three consecutive turns, he wins.

Some suggestions in the rules book and addenda imply that the Colored player is favored to win, and so it would seem: for while the Colored player cannot develop much of a coherent strategy, all he has to do is make things freeze up and fall apart, while the Grey player must both make a profit and “defend society” against those meddling kids.

Support material

None, of course, as befits such a topic.

Other games of this type

As an aficionado of politically-slanted “man in revolt” simulations, I’ve never encountered anything quite like this game. There are some games that approach it (like Chicago, Chicago or Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker!) but not on such an abstract level. P.M. indicates that Demono was born out of frustration with Class Struggle.

Other games by this designer

In 1986 Frank Beat Keller published a more standard-looking board game called Bolo Bolo which attempted to explain in game form P.M.’s ideas about autonomous social groups and how they function in urban society. It is also out of print and apparently was available in German only.

Epilogue by P.M.

I have used my pseudonym “P.M.” since my first novel, Weltgeist Superstar (1980). It doesn’t mean anything special, it’s based on the most frequently occurring entry in the telephone book (Peter/Paul Mueller/Meier). It has not prevented me from performing dozens of readings and other public meetings both at home and abroad.

My game Demono is actually taken from my novel Tripura Transfer (situated in NYC, evidently), where an alien goddess plays it against a human revolutionary and loses. One of the origins of the game was my annoyance about the US game Class Struggle, that seemed to me both humourless and lame. As you might have noticed, Demono follows closely Marx’s theory of the tendential fall of the rate of profit generated by the learning curve of the proletariat in resisting capital. It is a deeply educational game (without any students, though).

Not only is my work widely unknown in North America, this also the case for the rest of the planet. My most known work among all the unknown ones is called bolo’bolo (www.paranoiacity.ch) and is about everything. It is available in English (www.autonomedia.com). My major novel is about the year 1000 that didn’t happen (2200 pages).

Thanks for your attention, P.M.