Civic Tech Field Guide
Sharing knowledge and productively growing the fieldThe Tech > Media > Games and gamification - (107)
Digital or analog games and activities designed to promote civic engagement and awareness through play. Many of the digital games are one-off projects, and aren’t maintained over long periods of time (for example, when browsers remove support for Adobe Flash). Gamification seeks to bring elements and mechanics of gameplay to more arduous tasks, like registering to vote.
Suggested reading:
- Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History – A history of board games and the powerful ideologies embedded within them, by Alex Andriesse, Public Domain Review (2019)
- How Minecraft Is Teaching Kids to Face the Threat of Climate Change – A case study of efforts to teach young children in Australia about climate action through the incredibly popular game.
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NationStates is a free nation simulation game. Build a nation and run it according to your own warped political ideals
The basic idea of the game is to end the monopolistic practices of the 3-company-combinations of the game board. The players are Trust-Busting lawyers going about the board slapping lawsuits on the monopolies. The winning trust buster is the one who ends with the largest number of social-credit points when one of the players runs out of money.There are 3 kinds of company combinations on the board: Oligopolies, Trusts and Monopolies, marked by one, two and three “accusation circles” respectively. “Accusing” is done by placing a small, round chip of the same color as your token on such a circle. When all accusation circles of a combination are covered, the monopolistic practices of that combination have been ended. An accusation chip can be bought from the “Budget-Commissioner”; when lending money, he provides a Social-Credit card as an IOU.Variant rules are supplied for a Low-Budget Game and a Trading Game.Anspach fought –and won– a vicious court battle against Hasbro (and others) over this game.Anti-Monopoly was briefly (1976-1982) published as “Anti” and “Anti-Monopoly II” was published as “Choice” whilst the company was forbidden to use the word “Monopoly”. In 1984 after prevailing in court the company used the names “Anti-Monopoly” and “Anti-Monopoly II” for its two games. In 1987, Anti-Monopoly was withdrawn and Anti-Monopoly II was renamed “Anti-Monopoly”. The game described here was produced as Anti-Monopoly before 1976 and from 1984 thru 1987. The game produced as Anti-Monopoly after 1987 is a different game, with the same name. Plenty of potential for confusion there, eh?
What happens when you mix technology with the strategic board game of Risk? For those unfamiliar with the game, the basis is world domination. Players roll dice and place tiny plastic soldiers and […]
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Portland of Opportunity
Portland, OROpportunity Awaits: Introducing (Port)Land of Opportunity, Our Newest Game
Mannahatta: The Game is a location-based game for the iPhone that maps Manhattan's historical ecosystem onto its modern day streets. Players move from block to block and gain points when they make connections between the ecological elements that used to exist in the exact same location in 1609, when Henry Hudson first set foot on the island. Working individually or as part of a team, a player must cover a wide physical territory across the city to collect points, earn badges and move to the top of the leader board.
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