Discursive games on board: Communicating ideology through the semiotics of play

This study examines analog board games as multimodal semiotic systems that mediate cultural communication and ideological transmission. Rather than treating board games as recreational objects, it positions them as historically situated discursive artifacts shaped by shifting sociopolitical contexts. Through a diachronic framework, the study traces their transformation from nineteenth-century moral pedagogy to twentieth-century capitalist simulations and, more recently, to designs foregrounding geopolitical contestation and decolonial critique. Using multimodal discourse analysis and social semiotics combined with close and comparative play analysis, the research investigates how meaning is encoded through symbolic design, rule systems, and player positioning across purposively selected six games: The Mansion of Happiness, Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, Twilight Struggle, Food Chain Magnate and Spirit Island. Findings indicate that while earlier games naturalize dominant moral and economic worldviews, contemporary titles embed reflexivity and systemic critique within their procedural structures. The study argues that board games function as communicative ecologies in which form, mechanics, and ideology interact to shape cultural meaning.