Every president since my birth has a game in this series. The pieces combines the text from their inaugural speech with a board game that symbolizes their presidency.
Gerald Ford’s presidency was remarkable only because of how slip-shod and improvised it was; to date, he remains the only US president that was never elected for the job. In December 1973, two months after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned due to a tax evasion scandal, Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. He assumed the presidency after President Nixon resigned in August 1974. Ford's presidency was anything but perfect; domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy since the Great Depression, with ballooning inflation and a recession. Arguably one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal which is such an odd move in that it really only benefited Nixon and his legacy and not Ford’s. Ford’s whole presidency seems disjointed and not really his own which is why The Ungame makes sense. The board is laid out as an endless loop of spaces and to begin the game, the deck of question cards is shuffled and placed face-down on the board. Each player in turn rolls a die, moves his/her marker along the path according to the number rolled, and follows the instructions on the destination space. The game ends at the players' discretion, typically once an agreed-upon time limit has been reached, and has no winner or loser. The Ungame is like Ford’s “un-presidency” and ultimately doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
