Too many colons in that headline, you’re right, but it’s probably fitting given that Thomas Edison was completely full of shit. After hiring Tesla to fix efficiency problems with his direct current electricity generators in the late 1880s – and offering him $50,000 to boot – Edison famously ducked out of the deal when Tesla cracked it several months later, telling him he obviously didn’t understand American humour.
That sparked (sigh) Telsa striking out on his own and working on his favoured AC current, which is more efficient than DC at transmitting electricity over long distances. No money in that for DC-focused Edison, though, so he launched a hate campaign against AC which saw him electrocuting stray dogs and cats and even unwanted cows and horses to prove how dangerous it was. He topped that by funding the first working electric chair. Thanks Edison! Tesla, on the other hand, was a bloody legend who liked the idea of creating lightning and shooting it around – without him these guys would not exist.
Revenge is at hand though! Tesla vs. Edison: War of Currents lets two to five people control pioneering electric companies of the time in a race to dominate the light and power industries. Or will do when it’s ready – it’s due to hit Kickstarter later this year.
Publisher Conquistador Games describes Tesla vs. Edison as a 90-minute “medium weight strategy” game with lots of player interaction, which sounds pretty good to us. Each players gets a famous investor as well as two other “luminaries” who can be tapped for their skills in invention, manufacturing, finance and public relations. Sounds like you’ll need plenty of the latter if cats and dogs are going up in smoke all over the show. Fingers crossed for this one – it’s got a lovely theme over the top of what sounds like standard card-driven worker placement, so hopefully the actual game measures up – and isn’t massively boring. Designer Dirk Knemeyer’s previous offerings include Tomorrow, a game of controlling post-apocalyptic superpowers to make terrifying-sounding decisions about how to best go about depopulating each other’s countries. Which sounds like a lot of things (namely the sort of video games kids play in Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake), but definitely not boring, so hopefully Tesla vs. Edison is in with a shout.
You can sign up for an early invite to the Kickstarter when it goes live here.
