War Game

War Game or War Games may refer to:

Literature

Film and television

War Game (short story)

War Game is a 1959 short story written by Philip K. Dick. It was first published in the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction, in 1959, and has since been re-published in two anthologies and at least twenty-four collections.

Plot Summary

The Ganymedans are considering war with Earth. A group of Earth toy safety inspectors examine three new toys from Ganymede to discover if they should be allowed to be imported: A toy soldier game where 12 soldiers attack a citadel, a virtual reality suit, and Syndrome, a Monopoly-like board game.

The inspectors determine that the citadel is absorbing the soldiers one by one for an unknown purpose, and fear that the game may secretly be an atomic bomb building to critical mass. The suit is so realistic that an inspector finds returning to reality difficult; with enough time a child would find doing so impossible. They play the board game while waiting with a bomb disposal expert for the last soldier to disappear, but find that the citadel is actually a therapeutic tool to build confidence in children. They nonetheless decide, out of caution, to only allow the board game for import.

War Game (film)

War Game is a 2001 animated short film made by the British animation company Illuminated Films, and based on the Michael Foreman novel of the same name. The film included many of the same scenes listed in the book, although four new characters were created.

In the short, the boys (Will, Freddie, Billy, and Lacey), are out playing a game of football when they hear about England declaring war on Germany. As in All Quiet on the Western Front, the boys waste no time in enlisting in the army (at this point the singing Kitchener springs from his poster to tell Will that he should 'play the game'). Later that night, Will and Lacey tell their parents and Annie of the great news. While Dad wishes them well, and Annie is sobbing for Lacey, Mum (voiced by Kate Winslet) tells her boys that war is not a game, and that they will be killed. But regardless, the boys leave for France, where they encounter hardships of the trenches, shooting competitions with the Germans, and bully beef.

On Christmas Day, a German soldier walks onto the battleground and invites the English soldiers to a football match. However, the match is broken up by the commanding officers, and the soldiers return to their trenches. That evening the soldiers go over the top and are cut down by artillery and machine gun fire. Lacey, Freddy, and Billy are killed instantaneously. Will is severely wounded, and lies in a shell crater with a German soldier. They exchange photos from home before both men die of their wounds.