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

dumb ways to die

dumb ways to die is a game about how to save people from making dumb decisions. the game is fast paced and in a more simple art style. the game is supposed to show you how simple things can keep you safe. the game works well in the thing it is trying to promote and show awareness about.

fake it to make it

fake it to make it is all about showing people how easy it is to make and promote fake headlines an media. it also teaches how to make fake media, but it makes it very clear that it is not a good thing. it is just to show awareness.

cast your vote

cast your vote shows how bad it can be to vote just to vote. it shows that it is a good idea to do research and be an informed voter, but it also shows how it can be easy to be influenced by the media.

Gris

gris is an amazing game about grief. it shows how slow the recovery can be and how its better to take it slow an even small accomplishments can be a big step in the healing process. beautiful graphics that help you feel what the character feels without any dialogue.

ideas

1. a game where we play as an animal and have to live life as that animal and help to keep this animals kin alive. their is not many things you can do with your character but explore and hunt or graze to keep your animal alive. these aspects of the game will get harder as the game progresses and the environment starts to change. it will start as weather conditions and get into habitat loss and hunters encroaching into your territory.
2. a mini games based game where you will play simple min games as a character with memory loss and each mini game completed it will bring back fragments of their past, slowly showing their life they forgot and the traumas that have lead them to this state of amnesia.
3. you are a CEO that has to make many decisions for their company but as the game progresses you get visions of what your decisions are doing to the people it affects, employees, customers, coworkers. you can chose to make better decisions to help people and make a difference or keep going the direction you are going because they are making you money.
4. a game where the main character is neurodivergent. in the game you have to go about your normal day and make decisions for what to do in certain scenarios, dealing with social exhaustion, sensory overload, executive dysfunction, and other struggles and experiencing how making certain decisions can either be beneficial for your health or can harm it. the game will have a bar that shows how much energy they have that day and how much energy you have is dependent on what you have done in previous days and you can go over the allotted amount with detrimental consequences. during your play thought their will be cut scene where you hear some of the common things people with these problems are told by people how don’t understand or have the same problems they do. and their is nothing you can really do to stop from getting these cutscenes.
5. similar to my last idea but having the character play mini games during decisions and playing the mini games in a completionism fashion can lead to the burnout of energy but some mini games are more important and need more energy to complete so you need to pick and chose what mini games you just try and complete with the bare minimum and what games you can perfectionist. how you play these games will also give achievements that give the mentality that neuro typical people try and give to neurodivergent people. the game is meant to make you frustrated with the fact you aren’t able to really do any more then you are doing.

monopoly

monopoly was a very fun concept. playing with the rules of different demographics like women and minorities really show how the world can be. of course it is not a one to one reconstruction of society but it still shows how different it is to live in todays society. having the white male be playing the game normally was really interesting.

McDonalds game

i loved how hard the game was and how much you need to pay attention really well. it really highlight how the business is run. the game play also forces you to make bad and unethical decisions like bribing politicians and health scientists. having it be almost impossible to do it ethically also helps highlight how corrupt the business is. the simplistic style is also a fun contrast to the game play and the message.

Chex Quest

i played Chex quest and as i played it it had nothing to do with Chex mix besides the characters being the different snacks in the mixes. the monsters rely had nothing to do with it and the weapon was a spoon and who eats Chex mix with a spoon. if it was cereal the spoon would make since. the game itself was kind of fun, it was pretty simplistic but their wasn’t a tutorial to tell me how to use the weapons or change weapons or how to open doors.

game ideas

1. the campaign trail – in this game you are a political running for and office. you pick who you are based on a bunch or random character cards, some have special bonuses and cons to them. you each start out with a certain amount of voters and spaces on the board can give you more voters. you will roll a 3 die and move that many place, some spots have bad outcomes. bad means a scandal came out about you and you will love voters or your opponent made a smear add about you and they take some of your voters. some spots will give you a chance to gain a monetary supporter and this lets you make more adds to give you multipliers to your voter gain each spot. you want the most voters by the end of the game.
2. echo chamber – Players start in a digital world where they are trapped inside an “Echo Chamber”—a metaphorical maze filled with distorted news, bias reinforcements, and cognitive dissonance puzzles. To escape, they must engage in debates with NPCs representing different viewpoints, critically analyze news sources, and identify misinformation.
3. the butterfly effect – Players make choices that impact the climate, economy, and society over multiple generations. The catch? They only see the long-term effects of their actions decades later. By playing through different scenarios—such as investing in green energy or ignoring climate policies—players witness how small decisions lead to massive societal shifts.
4. detox island – Players are stranded on an island with a nearly dead phone. They must decide whether to use its last battery for comfort (entertainment, messages) or survival (flashlight, emergency calls). The more they rely on it, the harder the game gets—losing awareness of their surroundings, getting lost, and missing crucial survival tools.
5. mirror heart – Players take on the role of someone navigating a complex relationship with a charming yet toxic partner. As time progresses, the dialogue choices and internal monologue change depending on how much emotional abuse the player tolerates. If they stay too long, their character begins mirroring the toxic behaviors, making it harder to recognize reality.

reading questions

1. what advergames have you played? did they influence a purchase? I have never really played an advert game myself but the ones i have seen have never made me want to buy the product, if anything it has made me just laugh at the stupidity of the game.
2. why do the advergames tooth protector and escape work? What makes chase the chuckwagon and shark bait fail? tooth protector and escape show a cause and effect, they aren’t just a game, they really show how their products can be used and how they work in real life. they make sense for the product and how people would realistically come in contact with them.
3. what does Volvo’s drive for life accomplish?  this game accomplishes a way to show a real reason that safety features are important and how hey actually work. it also shows a more real life mundane aspect of driving and not the over the top depictions in other games about driving.
4. what company used in-advergame advertising  stow and go challenge
5. what was one if the first home-console advergames and what beverage was it for?  the Kool-Aid man on the Atari for the Kool aid beverage.

Getting over it

i have seen many people play getting over it and have gotten the feeling of second hand annoyance and anger with the narrator and finicky game mechanics. Its a fun way to frame and test peoples patience. i personally don’t think i will ever play this game.

Game ideas

1. you have an egg and you just sit and rub it so it stays warm. once you hit a randomized amount of rubes or time of rubbing you can get a random chicken or a dinosaur, or any animal that hatches out of eggs then you can feed the animals.
2. flipping a coin and then you get a coin after every flip.
3. use augmented reality so you can collect the objects and people and other things around you and you get points for getting things.
4. just having a drop of water on a table and you can move it around and also add water with rain or other things and take it away as well.
5. the indominable human spirit – have an AI come up with ways to to end the human race or just kill the player and you the player have to come up with ways to survive as the AI keeps trying to kill you.

Questions

1. Ian brought a lot of the time wasting and reframing of skill to mindless play to even having more of an incentive to pay money to get out of having to play the game. in cow clicker you aren’t really playing in the way most people think about playing a game. it takes no skill at all to click on the screen or a mouse to make things happen its like sitting and refreshing your email in hopes to see something new.
2. making games like Farmville rely on friends speed up process and progress makes friends less of fiends and more of a resource. when you have more friends you can get things from them and the game awards you to have as many “friends” as you can.
3. compulsion is the biggest reason why social gams can erode your time away from the game. the time it takes in between things can get in your head and cause you to focused more on when the next time you need to click or collect or feed something you cant think of other things. you will sit and get on an off the game hoping to the thing the timer is counting down to is done.