This Retro Board Game Highlights the Cruelty of Fois Gras Production

Dec. 04, 2023

With Christmas around the corner and festive menus with all manner of gastronomic delicacies being planned, one item that might controversially be on many a shopping list is Foie Gras. Controversially, ducks used in the production of foie gras can be force fed, kept in inhumane conditions and forced into processes which unnaturally enlarge the liver to 10 times its usual volume.  As a result of this cruelty, the production of foie gras was banned in many European countries, yet there is still a large consumption, and importation of the product is not banned.

With the upcoming festive season in mind, Wakker Dier, the Dutch animal rights organisation advocating the welfare of animals in the livestock industry wants to remind anyone planning menus containing foie gras of the cruelty involved in the production of the perceived-delicacy. They  commissioned Antwerp-based creative studio Mutant to help them with that task. With the traditional board game Game of the Goose - a game played in Europe and the US since 15th Century when Francesco de Medici of Italy gave the game to King Philip of Spain as a gift - in mind, Mutant created a very special version of the board game for the animal rights organisation.

At first sight, the game looks like the traditional version by using its retro style with bright, cheerful colours and  illustrations that are purposely in the sweet, nostalgic style associated with the traditional board game. However on closer inspection things aren't what they first seem. The game is in fact a replica of the original, replacing the traditional images and rules of the game with haunting illustrations of some of the horrifying procedures used and carried out on the animals in the production of Foie Gras, with the rules reflecting the same. The rules of the game have been rewritten. In the original Game of Goose a player might end up in ‘jail’ or ‘the pond’, in this version, the geese get brutally force-fed, a perforated oesophagus or bird flu breaks out - a true representation of the realities of being a goose in the production of Foie Gras, all for human consumption.

For example, if the dice lands on number 10, the command is: Six times a day a steel tube is used to pump fatty corn porridge into your oesophagus. Skip 1 turn.  Or number 31: 31. 44. Perforated oesophagus: The steel tube that was pushed down has punctured your oesophagus. Return to 19. (full rules and commands in Notes to Editors).

Launching as an influencer campaign, the small-batch consignment of board games will be sent to Dutch animal rights influencers (see notes to editors for list of influencers), as well as a film on the organisation’s social channels.

Anne Hilhorst, Director, Wakker Dier said:

"The production of foie gras is banned in the Netherlands, yet it is still on the menu in 43% of restaurants. These restaurants will be sent our board game to confront them with the gruesome way foie gras is produced."

 

Odin Saille, founder and CCO of Mutant added:

"We crafted the illustrations in the game so that at first glance it looks like the cute family game we all know. But when you see the details and start playing the game, you discover the harsh reality of what geese have to endure in the production process. We pushed this contrast between the visual retro style of these board games and the brutal reality throughout the campaign."