The Board Games Focus on Spying & Global Crises
The rules and other materials for two board games that the Central Intelligence Agency uses to train its operatives were released on Tuesday. The agency released the materials due to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that was made last June.
The two CIA board games are titled “Collection Deck” and “Kingpin: The Hunt for El Chapo”.
The CIA using board games in their training was first reported by Ars Technica last March. The board game training program was initially created by David Clopper, a senior CIA analyst. Back in 2008, Clopper was tasked with developing new training exercises for CIA operatives and instead of doing the usual conference room meetings or briefings (which Clopper derided as “boring”), he decided to create board games about espionage instead.
“Collection Deck” involves players having to solve global crises by managing resources while “Kingpin: The Hunt for El Chapo” involves players on two opposing teams (El Chapo’s cartel and law enforcement) having to outsmart each other. “Kingpin” was reportedly made in collaboration with the Defense Intelligence Agency, another American intelligence agency.
“The files released for Kingpin are perhaps more revealing from gameplay and design perspectives,” read a recent Ars Technica report about the CIA releasing the rules and materials for their board games. “They include four deprecated rulesets, each marked up with an iterative series of changes and requests; there’s also a final, unmarked set of rules for anybody who might want to print and play the game themselves.”
If you wish to view the materials for both CIA board games then you view the FOIA request here.
So, what do you think about the world’s top intelligence agency incorporating board games into its training? Did you ever think that board games could be used in this way? Let us know your thoughts and opinions on this in the comments section?