System Dynamics

(Unfortunately this wasn’t working as an image, I’m not sure why!)

Untitled Notebook (3)

Our game’s goal was to give players the experience of gerrymandering – both by emulating the real world system dynamics, and evoking an emotional reaction to gerrymandering as bad, dirty, etc. The arc of our game is meant to mirror the real world arc in gerrymandering — influence the electoral map  prior to the redistricting, wrestle with your opponent to suppress voters and gain control of the state, and then get feedback (either winning or losing). Although there is sort of a feedback loop during the first card and piece buying phase, there’s more of a give and take rather than a loop in the second, piece placing phase. I think we could have added the successive games, where each influenced the next, if we wanted to have a more effective interaction loop. I think this would be an interesting aspect to pursue, since in the real world part of this system is the feedback loop where you gerrymander, build political control, and then gerrymander even more aggressively, or fight off responses.

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