I like to make games that also educate the player on real world issues through the game mechanics. The hard part I suppose is making it also easy to learn, fun and balanced, even if the real world situation is not.
The latest idea is a game on regional urban planning in the San Francisco Bay Area, where housing costs have gone through the roof due to limited supply. However, new housing is hard to get approved, due to existing residents concerned about traffic, loss of open space, or change to their neighborhoods.
The premise
- Players are local politicians, with victory conditions based on a set of "campaign promises" to make housing more affordable, reduce commute times, or improve quality of life. (the classic cheap, fast, or good tradeoff) These are represented by indexes going from 1 to 20.
- The game board is a map of the Bay Area, with about 50 squares representing different cities, with different icons showing the density of development (houses, 4-story buildings, highrises, etc)
- Players start out with a 50% Approval Rating, which represents political capital that can be used to place tiles or play cards.
Game design goals
- All players have to cooperate to avoid all losing, however, in the end only one person can win, and at some point it becomes everyone for themselves.
- Depict how long term solutions are politically unpopular, especially since the benefits may accrue not to the politician that initiated something, but someone holding office later.
- Promote player interaction and negotiation.
- Maximum 1 page of rules
- Game time under 60 minutes
Player turns
- On their "term in office" (turn) Players can add density to neighborhoods by placing tiles to make housing more affordable, but this may negatively impact the other indexes. They can also play cards that improve those factors.
- Approval Rating is replenished based on the state of the four indexes.
Short Term vs Long Term
- The game begins in a negative spiral, where if no bold actions are taken, everyone's approval rating will slowly decline to 0, at which point they lose.
- The bold actions that pay off long term require the player doing it to make an individual short-term sacrifice. However, everyone will benefit from it in the future.
Would love to hear if there are any games out there that address some of these concepts.
I like that idea of how one player might win even in an all-lose scenario. It does seem to keep in character with politics, where folks get elected because they're the lesser of two evils.
Got a board drawn up and will do a few tests this weekend.