Board Game Cleanup 2: 7 Wonders

Two years ago, my oldest son asked for a certain game for Christmas that he had seen on sale at Target. At the time, he and his brother were learning about the seven wonders of the ancient world, such as the Colossus of Rhodes, the Library at Alexandria, and the Pyramids of Giza. Initially, I knew little of the game, but I started reading reviews about it and was somewhat intrigued, but not entirely enthusiastic. Anyway, I proceeded to watch a playthrough done by Rodney Smith at Watch It Played and found the game to be acceptable from a gameplay and content standpoint, so my wife and I purchased it. Needless to say, my son was happy to receive it.

As some of you gamers out there may have guessed even before seeing the images I inserted in this entry, the game was 7 Wonders. Like many board games and card games out there, 7 Wonders is a turn-based card game, but it is divided into three distinct periods of technological development called "ages." During each age, players can deploy resource-generating cards and (with the correct resources) build structures through a kind of drafting component: each turn, you choose a card from a hand and then pass the hand to the person on your left (during Ages 1 and 3) or your right (during Age 2). As you establish your resource base and build structures and technologies, you can also choose to develop your Wonder, which is one of the seven wonders (or others, if you purchase the expansions). Without going too much into the rules, the object of the game is to score the most points (no surprise), but each turn is fast-paced because there is no down time waiting for someone to decide what to build; everyone decides at the same time.

In any case, there are numerous reviews and playthroughs out there. Needless to say, 7 Wonders is exceptionally fun and a favorite game of my family, but (as with Eminent Domain) I discovered two cards that were somewhat questionable with their art: Baths and Altar. In the Baths card, we see a depiction of the backs of two nude women preparing to bathe; in Roman times (or probably in Japanese onsens), I'm sure that it was commonplace for only women to bathe without clothing in the women's bath. In the Altar card, there is a priestess in a gossamer-thin frock sacrificing something to a deity; the garment suggests that there is nothing else under that garment.

Baths: an Age I card

Both cards depicts situations that may have happened in certain historical periods, but, as a father in an oversexed world, I don't understand why such art would be necessary to convey the concepts of baths or altars. In my opinion, even relatively sterile images of a bath or an altar in isolation would be suitable. Instead, the game producers saw fit to feature scantily-clad women (if clad at all). If anything, such images could send a young boy's imagination racing, and these games are played by boys and men (as well as some girls and women). What were the game illustrators thinking? What were they really trying to convey? Honestly, I'm not sure and it really doesn't matter what was intended; I just know that I'm not comfortable with those images in a family game.

With that in mind, I did what I've done with my other games: I found replacement art that I cropped in Photoshop and pasted over the original art. I don't have the image files of my replacement art, but I can say that the image I used for the Baths was a modern-day photograph of a Roman bath with a grainy filter to give it a textured look. For the Altar cards, I chose the image of an Israelite high priest with an ephod standing before an altar. Taking some care to crop the images to fit, I pasted the images to the cards and placed the cards into sleeves. With decks of sleeved cards, any modified card blends into the other cards. However, I did make the mistake of not adding indicative numbers to the pasted images, which show for what numbers of players cards should be used (for example, cards marked "6+" are to be included in six-player games, as well as all cards marked with lesser numbers).

Altar: an Age I card

As you may have gathered, my immediate reaction to finding those cards wasn't to throw away or sell the entire game. Instead, I thought about how significant the cards were. Because the images were on four cards that were only small parts of the gameplay, I felt that image alteration would be sufficient. I try to be judicious in purchasing games for myself and my family; if a game has strategic or tactical elements that are personally off-putting or morally offensive, I don't buy the game. Likewise, if I know that the game has some visual elements that are somewhat racy or inappropriate, I won't buy the game. Would I have purchased 7 Wonders, though, if I had known those images were in the game? Perhaps, especially if I had a plan for cleaning the game of those images.

Let me conclude with my opinion of sexuality in games: I don't see the need for it, whether it's suggestive imagery or some tactic that involves sexual attraction or seduction. I also don't see the need for scantily-clad women (or men, to some extent); having such images in games trains boys to look at women as objects. What I'm saying seems like a blanket statement (I have spent much time pondering this issue and could write at length about it, but I won't write on end for brevity's sake), but I think that our world has a major issue with objectifying women and yet holding women to impossible physical standards. Why have images of near-naked women in a board game? My advice: be wary and be prepared to reduce or eliminate anything untoward lest our children be shaped by the influences of the world at-large.