This was a really interesting look into the ways that board game mechanics can represent real-world systems in a way that provokes understanding or empathy.
There were also a couple of references to Gloomhaven that really made me laugh:
In 2021, researchers analyzed the ten thousand games with the highest rankings on the Web site BoardGameGeek, and found that, between 2000 and 2020, the average number of mechanics in new games had increased from roughly two and a half to four. The 2017 game Gloomhaven, which held the highest rating on the site for years, utilizes nineteen mechanics.
and
“Not everybody enjoys killing monsters in dungeons,” said Isaac Childres, the designer of Gloomhaven, which is about killing monsters in dungeons.