In short: COALITION is a competitive game about elections and coalition-building, for 2 or more players, requiring only pen, paper and string. Meant for completion in one sitting of 20-30 minutes. Download it here.
The Recipe:
Reflecting on 3 semesters of classes on game theory, political cleavages and electoral systems inspired this one.
Add to that a desire to put together a minimalistic game that would be quick to prototype and experiment with.
And the finishing touches—life just feels so empty when you’re not making something, when you’re not playing games. So I’m challenging myself to my knick knack challenge: make a knick knack every fortnight.
Add it all together and the first game of the Knick Knack challenge is born.
Development Notes:
I wanted to make a game to have players take the role of politicians as they apply game theory to a fantastical electoral system. Yet, the abstraction of gameplay seems to have removed a lot of what makes politics exciting: the intensity of competition, the persuasiveness of ideology, the human touch of electioneering.
I’m not sure if the themes and mechanics I was hoping to implement are just beyond the realm of something you could do with pen, paper and string. Perhaps this is just version 0.1 of something more.