MILPITAS, Calif. – Bono, U2’s crusading frontman, has set himself his most ambitious and difficult task to date: rescuing board games from neglect and despair. Toward that end the globe-trotting, name-checking, self-aggrandizing-but humble singer has announced the release of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, a board game he designed to “reintroduce people everywhere to the simple joys of a time gone by while, at the same moment, raising their awareness of the problems I encounter while attempting to remake the world and cure its ills.”
According to Bono, “Everywhere I travel—from the palaces of kings to the parlors of the common man and woman—I see families alienated from their members and family members alienated from their very souls by the cold, electronic voodoo gods of modern culture: television, computers, and hand-held devices.
“Therefore, I have vowed to dedicate myself and my creative energies to reviving interest in board games, which have been sadly neglected for too long; and I have called on world leaders to assist me in this crusade.”
Produced by Earwig’s R Us, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is, like its creator, an ever changing, ever challenging, ever compelling experience.
Each game, which can accommodate four to eight players, begins with the definition of an atomic bomb, i.e., a massive, world-threatening problem such as grinding poverty, global warming, or World War III, that only Bono can solve. After that problem has been selected by a roll of the dice, players roll the dice again to determine who will be Bono that game.
“When I designed How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and tested it with friends of mine such as Michael Stipe, Pope Benedict XVI, Tony Blair, Bob Dylan, Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman, and Ashton Kutcher, I was keen to establish that just because a player had the great honor of being me in this game that player was not automatically guaranteed of winning,” said Bono.
“There are no guarantees, my friend. I am, after all, just an ordinary human being chosen by a greater force to save the world, and even I sometimes on rare occasions fall short of the perfection to which I have been called.”
After a solemn, planet-threatening problem has been defined and the roles of Bono and other world leaders have been determined, players roll the dice and move their markers around the board.
Bono’s marker (a white Mercedes convertible with vanity plates) vies with other world leaders’ markers (black limousines with numbered plates) to see who can circumnavigate the board and reach the finish line first.
Along the way the other world leaders often unite to frustrate Bono’s efforts, and the demands of his day job—performing before millions of genuflecting fans, attending magazine cover shoots, giving speeches, and designing eco-clothing for the fashion impaired—also conspire to get in Bono’s way. At the end of the day, no matter who wins, the grievous problem remains unsolved, and all players live to issue press releases and fight the problem another day.
“In that regard,” says Bono in an uncharacteristic one-sentence thought, “the game is much like life.”
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