Suffragetto!

Suffragetto lets players relive the militant street activism of the Suffragist Women's Social and Political Union. The game is a contest of strategy and violence between two opposing parties—the Suffragettes and the Police—each side aiming to get six game pieces into the opposing side’s “home base” while defending their own political home from infiltration.

The WSPU was formed in response to the slow-moving pacifist tactics of other suffragette groups. They engaged in attention-getting strategies including disruption, occupation, destruction of public property, arson, and hunger-strikes. Police responded en force, leading the WSPU to create a thirty-woman bodyguard to protect its leaders and members. Known as the Amazons, they were trained in a form of jiu jitsu called bartitsu made popular by Sherlock Holmes, and promoted self-defense for women internationally. The game, Suffragetto, is a way to interact with the kind of physical feminism promoted by the WSPU, through leisure, and enacts feminist ideology in a hybrid fantasy-real world environment. Further, it allows players to experiment with alternative forms of resistance.

The goal of the Suffragettes is to break past Police lines and enter the House of Commons. At the same time, The Suffragettes must also prevent the Police from entering Albert Hall, an oft-used meeting space of the Women’s Social and Political Union.

It is the Police’s duty to break up a meeting of the Suffragettes, currently being held in Albert Hall, all the while, preventing the Suffragettes from entering the House of Commons.

The game is won by whoever first succeeds in introducing six members into the building guarded by its opponents.