Board Game Post Mortem : The Bad

The Theme

I had intended to create an atmosphere of appalled incredulity with capitalists and their dogma and use the chaotic expression of the proponents of free thought, namely anarchist as a tool to force the players to grapple with the crushing, mundane and defeating nature of bureaucratised meritocratic society. Which can be thought of as a long-winded way of saying 'this shit sucks' in reference to the current state of affairs and 'what if it didn't have to be the way it currently is?'  in reference to systems that are more in line with something like anarchism. 

What I actually created in my view is a game in which the system you interact with heavily encourage you to come to the conclusion that both sides are:

1. Equal, in either or both their viability to organise society
2. Only cosmetically different, in that they function on the same axis using the same tool for the same tasks.
3. Rigid, you are unable to alter anything about the side you are on or the other side meaning that part from the choice to compete or not there is no choice of any value to be made.
4. Competing for the same thing, both sides concern themselves with the same goals, the only difference being simple tribalism that it be your tribe that wins and not the other.

The result of this is if concerned only with what the systems imply or encourage the game's message is one of 'The Enlightened Centrist' who has positioned themselves in the very centre the conflict to declare moral authority by virtue of holding no beliefs. They see their lack of belief as evidence of their superiority as it is impossible to intellectually attack their position as they do not hold one to begin with. I personally very much dislike this as its both counter to what I was attempting to accomplish with the theme of this game and also contrary to my own personal beliefs.

What would have potential save me from making these grave errors in the design of the game systems was al large quantity of interactive and heavily analysed playtesting. As it stats the game has never been run physically as in using the printed cards and board and only a scarce number of times in my own head to check for the game design equivalents of grammatical errors. Such is life in the pandemic. Moving forward I'm committed to playtesting early and frequently by creating as many rough version of systems and assets as possible to prevent this kind of error from coalescing again. By actually experiencing the games I'm am making as they are made, much like a chef tastes their own cooking I hope to gain better insight into my own practise and grow from it without the need for every project to be so far off the mark. Correct the trajectory of the arrow mid-flight as it were, so as to at least hit the target if not get a bullseye.

My final thought to the theme is that even whilst failing in a lot of areas it wasn't conveyed universally enough for my liking it needed to appear on the board and in the rules and in the names of the action the players were taking and not just on the item cards. This was the result of the final part which I shall discuss next so needless to say it is something I will improve upon hereafter.