Socially Conscious Games; Gerrymandering

Experiment 5:

This experiment was all about socially conscious games with a focus on iteration. We were asked to tie the mechanics of the game we were making into the message we were trying to convey. We also had no limitations on the materials we could use or the type of game we could make.

At the beginning of the week the class had a discussion about what a socially conscious game is. Some examples of socially conscious games brought up in the discussion were Dafur is Dying and September 12th. The class talked about if a socially conscious game had to make as big a statement or be about such a big topic like these games and the answer was no. The socially conscious idea is different to everyone and pretty much any idea is or can be spun to be a socially conscious topic. Its up to you!

The group brainstormed ideas for a while. Everything from large scale ideas and world problems to make our games themed around to small nuances and interesting methods of implementing a game into a public, social environment.

Most teams got to work on coming up with their idea of what they wanted to convey. This took a while as many teams could not come up with a topic that was satisfactory to all the members or implementing the idea into a game was difficult. By the end of the day, most teams had settled on a rough form of their idea and had a game building around it.

Gerrymandering:

One team quickly got underway with their topic....Gerrymandering. The idea is to make a game where players attempt to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan or incumbent-protected districts. In other words: get land, watch your back. The game is played by having players draw their own boundaries to play in. Each player can claim up to half of the remaining play area as their own. After all players have picked a spot, they are each given a ball. The goal is to hit the other players with your ball, dodge theirs, take over over their land, and ultimately be the last district standing.

The game was fun and very fast. Some playtesters would play and say "Hey, its not fair", but thats the point. The game portrayed its idea and message well. The players, or districts with the largest area or support right out of the gate had the advantage and best positons in the beginning, but if a smaller district fought hard enough, they could claw there way to the top and eventually take over everyone.


The team iterated and made small changes between every round of play, each time making the game better. Small adjustments to how players define their districts and were allocated dodge balls were among the more important changes. The players changed how they played as well. During a game, some players would make agreements to not hit each other or to gang up on a larger district. This made the link to the gerrymandering idea even stronger and helped to reinforce the socially conscious aspect of the game. The team and overall class were well on their way to creating some great socially conscious games.