Overview
October Surprise is a political strategy serious game intended to teach about the pressures of unethical behavior as well as marketing strategy in the American political system and electoral college. It is designed for 4 players of 13+ age range. It demonstrates the pressure to expose your enemies during debates, the influence of trying to survive against candidates who are using similarly unethical tactics, just to different extents. Each player is persistently attempting to make their way through an America that is constantly being exploited by other players to their own ends. Each round, players collect votes from states and make decisions whether to behave ethically or immorally. If they choose to behave morally, they can have their states stolen from them by other players, be unable to participate in debates, and will never be able to outmove a flood of money. But if they are immoral they risk having their house of cards fall apart by being attacked by other players in a rolling scandal during debates. The stakes increase the further the players go into the election cycle.
Our learning outcome is an increased understanding of the electoral college system as well as an idea of whether the electoral college system needs to be reformed. We measure these goals via a poll before and after the game is played. We chose to do this game out of a desire to highlight some of the historical problems within our political system that are just as relevant today. A game similar to this is Perfect Dark.
Rules
The game rules are described entirely in this Rules document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_12HpOLzPPvOEWG6xL9lrB7Y8PZd-Xna/view?usp=sharing
Game Bits
All game components are described on page 1 of the Rules document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_12HpOLzPPvOEWG6xL9lrB7Y8PZd-Xna/view?usp=sharing
Assessment Goals
The goal of October Surprise is to teach its players (13+ age range) about the electoral system and the process candidates go through in order to get elected, and how the system needs to be reformed. We attempted to educate through a set of mechanics that have the player act in a similar manner to Presidential candidates on the campaign trail. They travel around the country to secure votes, making decisions around policy and whether to become corrupted through bribes, tax evasion etc. so as to gain more money for their campaign efforts. There are debates where players can expose others for becoming corrupt and return votes to the open playing field, similar to how debates in real life can reveal corruption or put candidates ahead or behind in the race. We evaluated whether or not players learned from the game with a pre and post 2 question questionnaire, asking:
“On a scale of 1-10 … 1. How well do you understand the electoral college? 2. How strongly do you believe in electoral reform”.
All participants during our final play-test noted an increase in the numeric response on both questions after playing the game, leading us to believe that the game was successful in educating the players on the learning goals.
History Versions of Game and Photos/Video Clips of Game Testing
Our history of play-testing and version changes are documented here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-X2FOI-F0M4NSiJ94O4z8VyYFt-4PMHa4s2MsH2sKDY/edit?usp=sharing
This document also includes links to all 4 play-test videos, as well as more specific screenshots from those videos.
Link to a “Print at Home” Version (PDF)
All printable resources needed to the play October Surprise are included as PDFs in this document: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1G_BrZ0DP0KGOjTFfRxOS0iUq2WH3T8Ve?usp=sharing
There is a document titled “Instructions for Set-Up” (linked below) that includes printing instructions for every document. It also includes recommendations on where to find suitable options/replacements for the non-printable game pieces.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cqzcbL8P4yD8kwx1blBRnMK-yZF-Y0QTZjT747HS6w8/edit?usp=sharing
