Stultus (Latin for “fool”) is a tense and exciting experience of not one speculative bubble, but four. Each player represents a trader, who pulls a card from the deck each turn, which determines whether the market goes up or down. Players have a chance to buy or sell whichever product is being considered that turn. The game is over when all cards have been pulled. The goal is to time the market, make the most lucrative investments, and end the game with the most gold.
The game is about market bubbles. Each player represents a trader who deals in four market commodities: tulips (the Netherlands experienced a Tulip bubble during the 1640s), shares in the South Sea Company (a bubble that struck England in 1720), the U.S. stock market of the 1920s (the collapse of which led to the Great Depression), and shares in the “Dot Com” stocks (which collapsed in the late 1990s). A specially prepared deck of cards represents the vicissitudes of a fickle market. The goal is to time the market, make the most lucrative investments, and end the game with the most gold.
I am presently offering Stultus as a free print-and-play game. Shortly, I will make available ten completely free sets of the game for blindtesting. If you are interested in testing a free copy of this game, and are willing to provide useful feedback, please contact me through my geekmail address or at prael@bowdoin.edu.
Of course, I invite anyone to go to the game page for Stultus, download the files (everything needed is there), assemble the game, and play. I would love to hear your comments and suggestions. The game offers a fast-paced and tense gaming experience for 3-5 players with 45-minutes to spare.
The game files are on boardgamegeek.com:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/43583
