All is Fair Play in the Game of Politics
Project Role: Sole Creator
Overview of Play
Political Party is a traditional game played with a board, cards, tokens, and social interaction. Each player is vying for elected office and his or her Political Party’s control of the nation in the coming years. Each player gathers Supporters, Lobbyists, and Recruiters to increase the Money, Publicity, and Political Power of his or her platform. Party Members such as Secretary, Secret Agent, and Propagandist can be hired to provide players with special powers that can be used to rally followers to his or her cause, or sabotage the stance of the opposition. After each round of play, players are encouraged to strike up alliances and back-stab the enemy through Preliminary Voting Sessions where the current political standings help to equalize the race. As the campaign gains steam, each player earns the right to make Political Decisions that help define his or her Political Party making it more unique and focused on specific issues. Ultimately, the Political Party with the most Political Power at the time of the election emerges victorious and will rule the hearts and minds of the nation for years to come.
Design Intent & Goals
The experience is designed to parody an election in game format. Politics is an elaborate game of tenuous pacts, broken promises, coercion, popularity, and the balance of power; perfect material to create a social game. The game also does not focus upon the issues of politics that we are all too familiar with; such as abortion, gun control, religion, or alternative energy. Instead, Political Party focuses on the physical systems of politics instead of the issues. This allows for the exclusion of touchy issues that may make players feel uncomfortable about their own personal political views while simply playing a game for entertainment. Political Party also does not focus around any specific nation or real people; allowing for players to transpose the content into a form that is familiar to them.
The goal of the design was to show politics for what it really is; a game. Power will shift constantly throughout the game as players try to take the lead. The systems of Political Party also seek to create a balance of play styles between those seeking power through Money, and power through Publicity; just like the real world.
Development Experience
The initial ideas for this game arose quickly from playing excellent traditional games including; Klaus Tauber’s Settlers of Catan, Uwe Rosenberg’s Agricola, and Out of The Box’s Apples to Apples. As an exercise in iterative design, the core mechanics were re-built with each version, often focusing on a different aspect of the final version. Play testing was also of prime importance to my iterative process; helping me balance values, cards, the economy, and keeping the momentum of play. After 4 months of development from initial concept to current version, there is still much more work to be done, but each version is getting closer and closer to a perfect game emulating the battles of a political race. Print materials were created using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop.
While creating Political Party, I gained first-hand knowledge including:
+ Paper prototyping.
+ Rule construction and language use.
+ Testing and feedback pools.
+ Balancing complex and interwoven systems.
+ Deciphering player experiences to make adjustments.
Prototype Game Resources
There are a variety of materials required to play Political Party.
The extensive rules book can be viewed as an Adobe PDF from the link below. It details everything you would need to know about how playing Political Party works.
Below is an additional link to an Adobe PDF document that contains all of the cards, and printed materials used in the prototype. They can be viewed, or even printed to create your own copy of the game. Some elements will require multiple copies, and for other elements such as tokens, you may have to get resourceful!
Download Additional Game Elements:
Return to the Games page.
View previous game: The Eve.