Digital game worships the spirit of the age

Oh, Gilbert, lighten up! You take this stuff way too seriously!

Sumer is a digital board game inspired by M.U.L.E. and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Race across the Ziggurat in ancient Sumer to harvest barley, herd goats, and sacrifice to the great goddess Inanna.

This game is very timely. Inanna (Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite/Venus) is essentially the spirit of the age. She was a goddess of love and war, the apotheosis of unrestrained sexuality and the stereotypical Hollywood kick-ass female.

She could be the icon for our society’s idea of the perfect woman: The epitome of beauty and indulgent sensuality, equally at home wearing a man’s armor and bashing some heads — but never a mother.

Social justice types ought to love it.

It won’t sell, though. For a lot of guys in this modern age (thankfully, not this one), the goal of the game — pleasing a demanding goddess of sex and war by sacrificing all your stuff — hits way too close to home.

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