Author: klvst298

the campaign trail is a game about the struggles and certain unpredictability of running for a political position. certain factors play a lot in weather a candidate can win and weather they have a chance. in this game i have used real data on voter preferences and used those to disadvantage the minority groups running in the game. a lot of people don’t like to think about this gap in preference but it is highly prevalent. like when have seen in the past it is still possible for the minority candidate to win it is mostly just lick of the draw sometimes.

the final rulebook

the campaign trail –

To start the game the deck of candidate cards will be passed around the table face down. When you get the deck of cards you are to choose a card randomly without looking at them. This will be who you play as during the game. 

Also shuffle the chance cards and ad cards and place them next to the board. 

Start the round with the oldest player rolling the 6 sided die. 

Play will continue clockwise.

Landing on a red or blue dot will gain you voters and you track this on your ballot card. 

You can only gain voters if you land on the color that matches your party. 

The amount of voters you gain each time is indicated on your candidate card.

Not all of the amounts on the cards are the same, this difference is based on statistics about voter preference in a candidate. Things like ethnicity and gender affect these statistics.

Chance cards:

• Chance cards are pulled every time you land on a big white spot. 

Smear campaign:

If you pick up a smear card you are able to make a campaign against one of your opponents. First choose which opponent you will steal from and then roll the die to see how much of your opponent’s voters you steal for yourself.

1 = .1x of opponents

2 = .15x of opponents

3 = .2x of opponents

4 = .25x of opponents

5 = .3x of opponents

6 = .35x of opponents

Scandal:

Scandal cards will make you lose a percentage of your voters. 

That percentage will be said on the card.

Investors:

Some chance cards have investors, these are people interested in giving you money. The card will say the amount of money you gain from this and you rack this on your balance sheet

AD campaign: 

With the money that you can get from investors and the money you have at the start of the game you can buy an ad campaign. You are able to buy one per turn and the amount this card gives you is random. Pick it up and keep it till the end.

The game ends when everyone makes it to the end. The goal is to have the greatest number of voters.

the original rule book

the campaign trail –

To start the game the deck of candidate cards will be passed around the table face down. When you get the deck of cards you are to choose a card randomly without looking at them. This will be who you play as during the game. 

Start the round with the oldest player rolling the 6 sided die. 

Play will continue clockwise.

Landing on a red or blue dot will gain you voters. 

You can only gain voters if you land on the color that matches your party. 

The amount of voters you gain each time is indicated on your candidate card.

Not all of the amounts on the cards are the same, this difference is based on statistics about voter preference in a candidate. Things like ethnicity and gender affect these statistics.

Special spots:

Smear campaign:

If you land on this space you are able to make a campaign against one of your opponents. First choose which opponent you will steal from and then roll the die to see how much of your opponent’s voters you steal for yourself.

1 = .1x of opponents

2 = .15x of opponents

3 = .2x of opponents

4 = .25x of opponents

5 = .3x of opponents

6 = .35x of opponents

Scandal:

Scandal spaces will make you lose a percentage of your voters. 

That percentage will be said on the space. 

Ad campaigns:

When you land on an ad space you will pick the card on the top of the ad pile. You will keep this card until the end of the game. At the end of the game you can flip these cards over and add how many votes you get to your score. 

The game ends when everyone makes it to the end. The goal is to have the greatest number of voters.

diffrences

as you can see the biggest difference in the game pieces itself is the board. after the first playtest i realized that the white dots were to far apart so i made a standard of 3 4 or 5 dots between white spots. this makes it so people are interacting with cards and making the game drag less in the beginning. i also took off the events being on the spots themselves. the writing is to hard to see on the board so i made cards instead.

in the original game i had excluded the money aspect of the game. i had wanted to see if the games point got across without this mechanic of buying ads for more money but that is a huge part of campaigning as a politician so i ended up putting it back with my final design.

investors are also a big part of running for an office, without investors ost people who run would have a 0 percent chance of being able to be seen and heard before elections. so this was a must.

playtesting

the few playtests i had helped me realize my pacing was dragging, especially at the beginning. players had to role to many times before anything as really happening. so i was able to speed that up.

also players wanted more opportunities to lose voters so it wasn’t jut a game of gaining. so i made the smear and scandal cards more frequent in the deck of chance cards so it would balance the constant gain of voters.

some people had mentioned losing voters if you landed on the wrong color but i feel that was to much losing because i don’t want players to go into the negatives.

Butterfly Effect

Player Questions: the players mostly had questions about how to start, on the board the start had 2 paths but in the rules it didn’t account for this so players were confused.

Learning Curve: the rolling of the dice, i didn’t have a 3 die but a 4 so they had to disregard the 4 but everyone was confused because they were not entirely paying attention to the game.

Player Interactions: most of the interactions were talking about the cards they got and their answerers which i what the game was designed for.

Confusion Points: i tend to write my ruled later in the night so my wording in the rules can tend to be confusing so it was mostly just understanding the rules when they were being read.

Player Enjoyment: i feel the players had more fun talking to each other than playing my game. but that is probably my games fault.

Frustrations: i couldn’t tell if anyone had major frustrations other than my grammar and handwriting but it was hard for players to know when to pick up a charity card because the board was smaller than it should be and i didn’t make the outlines as defined as they needed to be. also labeling the start and finishes.

Takeaways: my players didn’t play through the hole game so they didn’t get to the end to get the takeaway of making a difference by doing thing that help the planet.

The Campaign Trail

Player Questions: i don’t think any of the players had any questions that were not answered in the rules.

Learning Curve: having to do some of the math is a learning curve for players, but it is a different way to play for each player. their aren’t many things to learn this game is mostly about luck of the roll.

Player Interactions: no one landed on this space but stealing voters is one of the biggest interactions. mostly people were just talking about what was happening. i feel like this game has the best opportunity to make more interactions of losing and swapping around voters between players.

Confusion Points: when to lose and gain voters/ remembering what color you are.

Player Enjoyment: i think players enjoyed this game but we didn’t end up finishing it because others had to go work on things.

Frustrations: not landing on your color but no frustrations that i think i can really fix in later versions.

Takeaways: the takeaway of how political campaigns work would have worked better if i had done my initial thought of adding money and investors to help you either buy adds or other things.

the campaign trail –

To start the game the deck of candidate cards will be passed around the table face down. When you get the deck of cards you are to choose a card randomly without looking at them. This will be who you play as during the game. 

Start the round with the oldest player rolling the 6 sided die. 

Play will continue clockwise.

Landing on a red or blue dot will gain you voters. 

You can only gain voters if you land on the color that matches your party. 

The amount of voters you gain each time is indicated on your candidate card.

Not all of the amounts on the cards are the same, this difference is based on statistics about voter preference in a candidate. Things like ethnicity and gender affect these statistics.

Special spots:

Smear campaign:

If you land on this space you are able to make a campaign against one of your opponents. First choose which opponent you will steal from and then roll the die to see how much of your opponent’s voters you steal for yourself.

1 = .1x of opponents

2 = .15x of opponents

3 = .2x of opponents

4 = .25x of opponents

5 = .3x of opponents

6 = .35x of opponents

Scandal:

Scandal spaces will make you lose a percentage of your voters. 

That percentage will be said on the space. 

Ad campaigns:

When you land on an ad space you will pick the card on the top of the ad pile. You will keep this card until the end of the game. At the end of the game you can flip these cards over and add how many votes you get to your score. 

The game ends when everyone makes it to the end. The goal is to have the greatest number of voters.

Cry me a pond – Amber and Sarah

1. What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played? their was a lot of discussion but it was a lot of throwing out things so it was hard to try and get my word in cuse i want to say something but I’m afraid that when i do people are going to be upset that i ruined their conversation and a lot of the conversations dragged into long stretches of just few people having a conversation before we could move along with the game.
2. What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played?  i liked the art a lot.
3. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? play the game, but that’s not in a ” the game didn’t work so we couldn’t play” its meant to be a discussion game and that’s just not a genre of games that i enjoy. It did what it was supposed to do and strike up conversations.
4. If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? make the board bigger, or make it circular move so it could go infinitely instead of having to go to one side and then moving it in the opposite direction. you could make it a kind of whirl pool and the outside is happiness and the inside of the whirl pool is depression and have the lily pads around near the edge of the board.
5. What should be improved with the next version? how we move with the dice, when you answer the Ames cards( is it jut the person who rolled that answers the question or is it a group discussion),
6. What was the game’s message? the message of the game is to be mindful about your mental state. but i like to think its just that Ames is a vengeful spirit trying to do us bad lol.(not for real, love Ames)
7. Describe the game in 3 words: adorable, talkative, mindful

Barrel of truth – Collin

1. What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played? the most frustrating aspect was people making things that were just people being honest immediately be something bad, not everyone has the same opinions as others. and when things are written its hard to give disclaimers or tone indicators to the words on the page so not everything written means it how it is said by a different person.
2. What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played?  i liked being able to comment on what people said about me in particular, it was only like one thing but it was still fun.
3. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? its not necessarily something that i couldn’t do but something that i felt i couldn’t do. like i didn’t say somethings that i thought about saying because i didn’t know if that would affect someone or by saying it make people see someone differently.
4. If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? i don’t necessarily think anything need changed but if i were to change something i would make it so everyone is writing things about the same person every round and that Peron gets to see what everyone thinks of them.
5. What should be improved with the next version? prompts, better cards
6. What was the game’s message? i think the games message is about how anonymity can change how people talk about someone and how easy it is to skew information written based on how you perceive the world based on how the creator meant it.
7. Describe the game in 3 words: fun, writing, truths