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Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

14 replies [Last post]
Tue, 12/28/2004 - 22:22
Anonymous

Hello, I have an idea for a board game and I would like to get some feedback on it. Also, let me know if there are any similar games already on the market.

Basically, the game was inspired by Orwell's 1984. Whether the game is licensed or kept independent of the actual novel is not important to me right now, I am just interested in the concept and gameplay. One player assumes the role of Big Brother or "The System". This player's goal is to manage resources and eliminate the resistance movement. All other players assume the role of the resistance. Their goal is to topple Big Brother by crippling the economic and social system under which it operates.

Game Board
The board will be a grid that represents a city. It will contain streets and vacant lots. Players will place cards on the vacant lots that represent buildings such as factories, stores, residential apartments, theatres, and abandoned buildings. Colored pawns will be used to represent each player's units. Units will move along streets and in buildings.

Big Brother
BB builds and maintains a system which converts raw resources into manufactured goods and finally into monetary capital. This money is used to build factories, stores, and residential units. It is also used to pay for police and secret police units. BB can capture rebel units by moving police units onto the same space as the rebels. If all rebel units are captured, BB wins the games. Rebel players are not able to see the movement of secret police. Secret police movement is determined before BB's turn by selecting cards which represent spaces on the board. During BB's turn, the cards are shown to the other players, thereby showing the location of secret police units. Any rebels occupying those spaces are captured.

Resistance
Rebel units move around the city avoiding police and executing operations to destroy BB and the System. These operations include theft, riots, computer hacking, and bombings. Hacking allows player to see location of secret police units. Rebels use abandoned buildings as hideouts which are safe from police. If the rebels cause enough damage so that BB can no longer operate and support police units, the game is won.

Please let me know what you think, thanks.

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Wed, 12/29/2004 - 04:31
#1
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

I think you should really think this is over. There is so MUCH MORE potential in the book for a board game. For example: you should really include the skizofrenic nature of the people of 1984. The head of the Secret Police was also the leader (and founder) of the rebellion. So the all players could be with the BigBrother and the rebellion at the same time. In the book, the System NEEDED the rebbellion to mantain the eternal status quo, so this should be the role adn goal of all players

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Wed, 12/29/2004 - 05:27
#2
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

Materu wrote:
There is so MUCH MORE potential in the book for a board game. For example: you should really include the skizofrenic nature of the people of 1984.

Yes, I definitely agree that there are many important ideas in the book that I have not touched upon, but I'm not sure I want to get into all the social complexities of that world. I don't really want to create a "1984 The Game" per se, just a game that is inspired by it. That said, there are still some ideas I would like to work into the game such as interrogations, informants, and security cameras.

Thanks for the reply.

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Wed, 12/29/2004 - 07:23
#3
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

Well, you have a point. If you manage to capture the feel of the theme too well, nobody would play your game. It would be just too depressing :)

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Wed, 12/29/2004 - 10:02
#4
phpbbadmin
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Joined: 04/23/2013
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

Along those same lines, I wonder why no one has made a Matrix board game yet? You could have the players take on the role of the resistance within the matrix.... They could sabotage things in the matrix, as well as try to recruit more people to join. You could even add another 'layer' to the game of play that takes place beneath the surface of the earth; I.E. ship combat against sentinels, etc. Interesting concept. Anyone want it?

-Darke

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Wed, 12/29/2004 - 12:56
#5
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

A few thoughts...

Why does Big Brother have to be a player? The mechanics for Big Brother don't sound all that interesting to play - try to figure out where people are moving and play cards for that section of the city. Would it be possible to build Big Brother into the game system? You would have a cooperative game, where all the players are trying to defeat the system.

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Wed, 12/29/2004 - 22:03
#6
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

Darkehorse wrote:
Along those same lines, I wonder why no one has made a Matrix board game yet?
-Darke

Personally, I would stay away from buying a Matrix themed game only because I have become so wary of poorly developed games with great licenses, especially in the video game realm.

Darkehorse wrote:
You could even add another 'layer' to the game of play that takes place beneath the surface of the earth; I.E. ship combat against sentinels, etc. Interesting concept. Anyone want it?

-Darke

I do like the idea of having a sub-layer of the game as I have always been interested in the Gnostic themes from the Matrix. I especially like the idea of the "Key Maker" from the later movies. This character would allow players to escape the matrix and go behind the scenes allowing easy access to other parts of the matrix.

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Wed, 12/29/2004 - 22:33
#7
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

jhager wrote:
A few thoughts...

Why does Big Brother have to be a player? The mechanics for Big Brother don't sound all that interesting to play - try to figure out where people are moving and play cards for that section of the city.

I was worried about this, but here are a few ideas I have about it. I wanted the Big Brother player to be interested in the city building and resource management aspect of the game. I think this player could get a certain enjoyment from building a large manufacturing system and controlling the population through propaganda (building theatres).

Secondly, I wanted Big Brother to be a player character because I have always been interested in a game where two players are adversaries yet have totally distinct roles. In most games the players are all basically the same, nations fighting for control of territory, or traders trying to out-trade eachother. D&D type games have a DM versus hero characters, but I have always felt the DM basically wants the other players to succeed so that they can reach the end of the map that the DM created. I like the fact that Big Brother and the Resistance have different goals and different game mechanics. BB wants to create, rebels want to destroy. I do agree that certain mechanics of BB breakdown to a basic checker game of trying to capture the rebel pawns. If anyone has some more thoughts on this matter, I'd greatly appreciate it.

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Thu, 12/30/2004 - 13:01
#8
chowdah
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

In order to facilitate the BB vs Rebellion aspect and use the (as Materu pointed out) skizofrenic nature of the people in 1984 one possible idea could be that all players are both BB *AND* Rebellion. That they have to make "moves" for each side and can "win" as either side. They can make a move that would make it easier on themselves, but it would make it harder on another player (and vice versa) on either side. Thought it might get too confusing or too possible for a stalemate gameplay effect.

One note though about being "true" to the 1984 setting is that having a "winner" doesn't really fit - its not a world of winners and loosers - just exsistance for its own sake. How to fit this into a game?

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Thu, 12/30/2004 - 17:49
#9
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

chowdah wrote:
In order to facilitate the BB vs Rebellion aspect and use the (as Materu pointed out) skizofrenic nature of the people in 1984 one possible idea could be that all players are both BB *AND* Rebellion.

One way to implement this would to be to force rebel players to turn each other in if they come into contact. Once captured, players go through an interrogation where they give information about other rebel players operation plans (show of cards), then they are put into prison. The only way to leave prison is if the citizen morale reaches zero and all political prisoners are demanded to be set free.

chowdah wrote:

One note though about being "true" to the 1984 setting is that having a "winner" doesn't really fit - its not a world of winners and loosers - just exsistance for its own sake. How to fit this into a game?

This would take some serious tweaking to the game so far. I would have to add a point system to determine the winner. The goal of the game would be to sustain the status quo for as long as possible, when the system falls, the game is over and points are added up to determine the victor. In order for all players to want to sustain the system, BB would have to be dependent on the resistance movement. To do this, I would have to reverse the way the morale system works so that the larger the resistance movement is, the higher the citizens morale in BB's system would be. If there were no resistance, morale would drop to zero, and BB's production level would drop as well. And of course the rebels need BB to exist so that they have something to rebel against so that they can earn points. Does this make any sense?

By the way, the original morale system I envisioned for the game worked like this: Citizen morale ranges from 0-5. If BB can produce enough goods to support the entire citizen population, morale increases. High morale makes it harder to recruit rebels. If there is not enough goods for citizens, morale drops, production in factory then drops making matters worse. Low morale allows the rebel movement to grow.

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Tue, 01/04/2005 - 02:24
#10
Hedge-o-Matic
Hedge-o-Matic's picture
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Joined: 07/30/2008
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

chowdah wrote:
In order to facilitate the BB vs Rebellion aspect and use the (as Materu pointed out) skizofrenic nature of the people in 1984 one possible idea could be that all players are both BB *AND* Rebellion. That they have to make "moves" for each side and can "win" as either side. They can make a move that would make it easier on themselves, but it would make it harder on another player (and vice versa) on either side. Thought it might get too confusing or too possible for a stalemate gameplay effect.

One note though about being "true" to the 1984 setting is that having a "winner" doesn't really fit - its not a world of winners and loosers - just exsistance for its own sake. How to fit this into a game?

My own 1984-themed game "Dystopia" does exactly this, making every player take both sides, trying to win as either. The conflict does end, but the players all report feeling strangely uncomfortable with the dichotomy of fighting for the freedom of mankind, while at the same time trying to crush all human values so that somebody else doesn't "win" as the resistance before they do. Even though this was my intent, I'd agree that the overall effect of the game is indeed somewhat disturbing. It's very strange.

One note about this sort of theme is how well it is suited to boardgames, which can dictate the actions and reactions of players to a fine edge. Combining this lack of free-will with a design I intentionally made anonymous and drab, with the human actors of the game represented by interchangable Go stones, and you have a game that denies all goodness in the human condition. And really, isn't that what it's all about, in the end?

I'd like to see more games with this or similar themes.

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Tue, 01/04/2005 - 16:34
#11
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

Darkehorse wrote:
Along those same lines, I wonder why no one has made a Matrix board game yet? You could have the players take on the role of the resistance within the matrix.... They could sabotage things in the matrix, as well as try to recruit more people to join. You could even add another 'layer' to the game of play that takes place beneath the surface of the earth; I.E. ship combat against sentinels, etc. Interesting concept. Anyone want it?

-Darke

I may work on this. I have many MAtrix game ideas. Wonder how open to licensing the Wachowski Brothers would be...

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Tue, 01/04/2005 - 18:26
#12
s2alexan
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Joined: 10/25/2008
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

DrZippy wrote:

I may work on this. I have many MAtrix game ideas. Wonder how open to licensing the Wachowski Brothers would be...

Considering the quality of the matrix video games, and heck, even the last couple of movies, I'm sure you can pick up licenses pretty cheap :)

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Fri, 01/07/2005 - 00:37
#13
Hedge-o-Matic
Hedge-o-Matic's picture
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Joined: 07/30/2008
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

Personally, I'd shy away from limited-interest, "flash in the pan" influences like the Matrix movies. And the fact that only the first one was really any good doesn't help, either. In ten years, who'll remember them?

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Fri, 01/07/2005 - 15:01
#14
Anonymous
Orwellian 1984 styled Board Game

This sounds like a really cool idea, and I wouldn't think the big brother mechanic is boring to play. I would be all about playing that as often as possible. although I must agree that having everybody playing both sides sounds even better although difficult to pull off. Keep on this one. I know for one, if it played well I would like it.

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