ILLUMINATI

www.sjgames.com/illuminati/

(Not to be confused with the Illuminati, the secret cabal at the center of nearly every conspiracy theory to come down the pike for the past 300 years…)

Steve Jackson Games has been around since the 1980s, when they first came onto the gaming scene with their "minigames." These original games were tiny, plastic boxes no more than 10 inches long, containing six-sided dice and tiny cardboard pieces for playing. The first minigames from Steve Jackson were Ogre, Car Wars, and Illuminati – and all three of these games have gone on to become legendary gaming classics! The first two were action-packed "combat" simulations, but Illuminati was…well…Illuminati was something different. This was the first game to delve into the rich world of conspiracy theories, and the depth and accuracy of the conspiracies portrayed in this game (as well as the satirical aspect of it – the Boy Scouts being controlled by the Servants of Cthulhu?!?) revealed Jackson's love of weird conspiracies.

The gaming magazine Dragon reviewed Illuminati in 1984 (how appropriate!), and the orginal reviewer noted, "I played it with a local office holder, who beat me five times in a row and scurried off to buy his own copy of the game." This, of course, is even more proof of the accuracy of the game – which only makes it that much more enjoyable. The Illuminati game is a MUST-HAVE for any conspiracy researcher, whether you're a serious conspiracy theorist or a mocker.

Illuminati spawned several expansion sets, and also gave birth to three further games: Illuminati New World Order (INWO), the trading-card game; GURPS Illuminati, the role-playing GURPS book that infiltrated the world of GURPS; and the most holy and slackful of them all, INWO SubGenius!

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