'Jade Helm 15' Is a Board Game for People Who Think Obama's Invading Texas

We're into the second day of Jade Helm 15, an eight-week military exercise involving Navy SEALS, Green Berets, and other special forces across seven states in the Southwest. So far, we still live in a free country, but just in case the operation is really a cover for Obama's hostile takeover of this nation, Subaltern Games has created a free board game that will let you strategize for the great battle to come between Texas and the tyrannical federal government.

Jade Helm 15, as the board game is called, pokes fun at a conspiracy theory that's been entertained for too long.

Conspiracy theorists fear that Jade Helm 15 is a cover for anything from a psychological operation aimed at getting citizens used to seeing armed forces in their neighborhoods, to a full-blown invasion that will use Walmart stores as staging areas and FEMA processing camps.

There are a lot of people with a lot of crazy conspiracy theories out there, but one of them happens to be the governor of Texas, who deployed the Texas State Guard near the location of the exercise in Texas just to keep an eye on them and make sure Obama doesn't go in for the kill.

Jade Helm 15 is a two-player wargame (kind of like Risk), where one player is the United States and the other is Texas. Players take turns moving their units and attacking with dice rolls. If you're Texas, you win by surviving for 10 turns. If you're the United States, you win by establishing 5 Walmarts as FEMA camps. Each side starts with three units, and either side can also win when the opponent doesn't have any units left. This war for the fate of America should take about 10-15 minutes to play.

You can find the rest of the rules and download the game board for free here. The game was developed by Seth Alter and the map was made by Marshall Johnson.

Alter told me that he made the game because someone had to.

"I had intended for this to be a 'joke game' but it ended up being really fun to play, so I put it online," he said.

It took about seven hours to draft the rules, make the map, and playtest the game.

"Honestly, it's one of the best effort/output ratios in my life," Alter said.

Alter is also currently developing a school management simulator called No Pineapple Left Behind, which mocks the No Child Left Behind Act.