Overview
For unknown reasons, the U.S. government has suddenly announced that the country’s immigration capacity is full! Only one spot remains. As an international student about to graduate, you’re shocked by this news. What would you do for a chance to stay in the U.S? Pursue success through hard work, attempt extraordinary achievements, or woo an American citizen? Whatever you decide, it’s time to fight for your American dream.
American Dream is a game that lets players experience the challenges, anxieties, and uncertainties of immigrating to the United States. If you’re an immigrant who is or has gone through this, be prepared to say this game is too real. If you’re a U.S. citizen, prepare to put yourselves in the shoes of people who are aiming to have what you were already born with.
In this game, your journey begins on an F-1 Student Visa, which has an expiration date. If you fail to secure a new visa in time, your dream is over. The game unfolds over seasons, with each turn presenting opportunities to grow or challenges that rock your progress. This game is for 4 players, ages 14+.
Players can choose paths to victory based on real immigration paths.
- The EB-1 (Extraordinary Ability) path requires players to learn numerous skills and attempt various achievements (such as the Meta Hackathon).
- The EB-2 (Skilled Worker) path requires a stable job and promotions; it has the lowest demand for money and skills, but success depends entirely on the annual lottery.
- The CR-1 (Marriage Immigrant) path is full of uncertainty: players develop a romantic relationship with a U.S. citizen, and a successful proposal means an immediate victory!
Rules
You can find our rules here.
Game Bits
| Object | Description |
| Main Board |
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| Player Placemats (4) |
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| Job Cards (13) |
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| Achievement Cards (12) |
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| Action Cards (48) |
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| Skill Cards (48) |
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| Money |
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| Heart Tokens (9) |
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| Visas |
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| Green Cards |
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| 20-sided die |
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| Player Markers (4) |
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| Promotion Markers |
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Assessment Goals
We have set the outcome of the game into three levels: factual information, attitude changes, and behavioral changes. For each level, there are different goals and assessment questions.
- Factual Information
Goals:
Players understand the basic knowledge of the US visa system.
Players understand the basic ways to immigrate to the US.
Players understand the meanings of different visa names (e.g., F-1, H-1B, EB-1).
Players understand the possible challenges when immigrating to the US (e.g., unemployment, policy changes).
Assessment questions:
Before the game starts, ask the players if they know how to immigrate to the United States.
After the game ends, provide paper and pen. Ask: Present in any way: How to immigrate to the US?
Expectations:
Players can write down three basic ways to immigrate to the United States.
Players can explain the process on the game board in words.
Compared with before the game starts, players have mastered more factual information.
- Attitude Changes
Goals:
Players understand that immigration is not purely merit-based but shaped by chance, politics, money, and personal circumstances.
Players recognize systemic barriers.
Players empathize with the uncertainty and stress immigrants face.
Assessment questions:
Which way do you think is the easiest to immigrate to the US? Which is the hardest? Why?
Use three words to describe your experience in the game.
Expectations:
Players have deep comprehension on different ways to immigrate to the US.
Players can understand the uncertainties and unequal opportunities involved in the immigration process.
Players have reported their subjective experiences. The designer should observe the similarities and differences between these reports and the intended aesthetic.
- Behavioral Changes
Goals:
Players can develop a greater understanding and empathy towards potential immigrant groups in their daily lives and reduce discriminatory behaviors.
Players can offer assistance to potential immigrant friends who are in difficulties.
Assessment questions:
If one of your international student friends wants to get a US green card, give them some suggestions.
Do you have potential immigrants around you? In what aspects do you think they are different from you? After playing the game, how do you view these differences?
Expectations:
Players will be able to treat the potential immigrant groups around them more amicably and understand how to offer them assistance.
History Versions of Game
During our 2-week game sprint, we iterated on our game continuously. We conducted 6 playtests, which are documented in the table below. Our initial game had a simple board similar to Game of Life, and a dice roll determined how many steps forwards you took and if you qualified for a Visa. We received overwhelming feedback that our first few iterations were too luck-based and that players had too little to no agency. We added more mechanics for the players, such as skills, jobs, and achievements, creating richer dynamics such as cooperation (through trading skills) and progression (accumulating money and skills to attain certain goals). Overall, our classmates who played our first version to our last version really noticed and appreciated the changes that we made, which we will explain in detail below.
| Playtest | Game
Version |
Date | Host | Players Number | Players Information |
| 1 | 1st | Sept 24th | Evelyn | 4 | Peers in CS377G |
| 2 | 1st | October 1st | Angela | 4 | Peers in CS377G |
| 3 | 2nd | Oct 6th | Angela & Evelyn | 3 | 1 US Citizen, 2 Immigrants |
| 4 | 2nd | Oct 6th | Angela | 4 | Peers in CS377G |
| 5 | 2nd | Oct 6th | Tianze | 5 | 5 International students |
| 6 | 3rd | Oct 8th | Angela | 4 | Peers in CS377G |
| 7 | 4th | Oct 10th | Angela & Evelyn | 4 | Friends |
Version 1 – Playtest 1
Figure 1: Game board of 1st version
Context
Angela and Evelyn made the first draft of the game on September 24th, in the first week of class. We wanted to make a game about immigration and immerse players in a narrative-style game to change their attitude about a sensitive topic. Because we had limited time to work on this game in class before jumping into a playtest, we had to rely on very simple mechanics, such as rolling a dice to advance forward a certain amount of steps. Certain squares had actions, such as “Attend a visa interview”, and players could only advance from those squares if they rolled above a certain number. Our Visa process was also random – players would randomly choose a Visa, and if they drew a Visa they could afford, they automatically got it.
Key Changes Made
| Type of Issue | Issue | What We Changed |
| Mechanic | No agency or opportunity for strategy. Players didn’t feel challenged or clever, making the game less engaging. | Allow players to make strategic decisions by choosing skills and jobs that can help them get a Visa or Green Card. However, still allow for random events to shake up the game via “Action” and “Policy” cards.
Allow players to earn and use money to buy goods or improve odds to achieve a milestone. |
| Mechanic | Players didn’t understand why users had to just roll dice to get to a special square to get submit Visa, interview for a Visa etc. | Remove the journey-like board game and replace it with a time-based game using a “Seasons” wheel to represent each round and when players can choose certain actions. Each season represents one round. |
| Mechanic | Advantages and disadvantages of policy cards were too extreme, making someone win or lose easily | Instead of having the “You got sick” policy card make the player go back to the start, we changed the policy so players just have to pay $3K. |
| Mechanic | Players were frustrated if they didn’t have enough money for a Visa. They had to wait for their turn until they finally drew a lucky “Free Visa.” The “Free Visa” also does not exist in the real world. | Replace random drawing of different Visas. Instead, allow users to gain different types of Visas (H1-B, O-1) with different requirements and lottery odds so players have more control. |
| Usability | Confusing to keep of two different dice (one 6-sided and one 20-sided) | Decided to get rid of 6-sided die as a mechanism to move players between different states. Kept the 20-sided die for probability-based milestones (e.g. chance to get a promotion) |
Version 1 – Playtest 2
Context
After getting into teams, we decided to continue our immigration game. Our game was kept mostly the same, except we upgraded the board. We found mostly the same results as before. You can find our full notes here.
Version 2 – Major Changes Made
Figure: Game Modification Plans Discussed at the Meeting
After Playtest 1 and 2, we re-defined our game’s mission: to educate US citizens about the challenges, trade-offs, and uncertainties of immigrating to the United States. We chose to target US citizens so that our game can allow players to develop empathy for immigrants and the challenges they face. Based on the mission, we used the MDAO framework’s backward approach, designing from the player’s perspective. First, we discussed our intervention requirements—we defined three key outcomes: [1] Players understand that immigration is not purely merit-based but shaped by chance, politics, money, and personal circumstances, [2] players recognize systemic barriers, and [3] players empathize with the uncertainty and stress immigrants face.
Since immigration is a process that requires luck, we kept the mechanic of rolling dice. To address the issue of agency, we introduced more choices for the players to make. For instance, players can choose which skills to acquire during the education stage and choose what job to take. We clarified three ways to win the game (based on the three most common immigration methods in reality) and left it to the players to choose. Players make active choices, and the results of the choices are determined by the dice, thus creating a game experience that is “controllable” yet “full of uncertainty”.
Version 2 – Playtest 3
You can find our full write-up of the playtest here.
The most critical feedback we received was related to player agency and rules clarity. The most significant problem was that players would get “stuck” due to insufficient skills to find a job, leaving them with no meaningful actions to take. Players also found it confusing to keep track of all the rules mentally and suggested adding a central board to display the different paths to victory. Other important feedback was that the initial instructions were not intuitive, the game lacked dynamism due to a shortage of special skill cards, and there were not enough ways for players to acquire new skills once the career phase began.
This feedback indicates that despite the design being targeted at agency, the absence of agency (in job hunting) remains an issue in the players’ experience. At this moment, we have experienced the difference between “the designer’s imagination” and “the player’s experience”.
Key Changes Made
| Type of Issue | Issue | What We Changed |
| Usability | Would be nice to have space for player’s Skill cards | Create space for skills cards on players’ placemats |
| Usability | Difficult to distinguish cards because they were all white and just included “W” for “Work” and “E” for “Education” | Rename “W” to “Work” cards and “E” to “Education” cards. Consider color coding or adding relevant symbols to the back of cards. |
| Usability | The team kept forgetting to move the needle on Season and updating Year and found it annoying to do so. | Assign a designated player to keep track of the Season and Year. |
| Mechanic | No special skill cards (e.g. sabotage, trade, take, lose a card) came up in the skills deck | Add more special skill cards in skills deck |
| Mechanic | Player with not enough skill cards for any of the jobs in the market couldn’t do anything and had to wait | Allow users to acquire skills in some other way |
| Mechanic | Once a players cashes in skill cards for a job, there’s few ways to acquire skills again | Add skill cards in Work cards deck |
| Mechanic | No reminder to check all players’ F-1 visa status in Year 6. | When changing the Year tokens, have the Year 6 token be a special color or have some reminder to check F-1 Visa status |
| Usability | Hard to keep track of all the rules mentally | Have a board in the middle that shows the different paths to victory / requirements. Players thought the player mat was useful so a board in the middle would be as well. |
Version 2 – Playtest 4
This test was conducted in the classroom and was not completed due to time constraints (only 9 minutes were spent). Notably, the rule explanation phase alone lasted at least 6 minutes, which reminds us that we need to find a clearer way to present the rules. Players were surprised by the significant changes in this game, as it looked completely different from last week’s version 1 (indeed, it was already a “Ship of Theseus”).
Version 2 – Playtest 5
Figure: Sketchnote version of the rulebook
To address the issue of how rules are presented, we came up with the sketchnote strategy taught in this course. With sketchnote, we can display core mechanisms (such as how to win) and also record some details for players to check (such as the success range of a roll). This is much better than presenting a document when it comes to showing game rules. Therefore, we quickly generated a sketchnote version of the rulebook and tested it. This strategy was very successful, and the reports from players saying “the rules are confusing” decreased significantly.
According to the playtest report, on the positive side, players found the game’s random elements, such as lotteries and dice rolls, successfully creating a tense and exciting atmosphere that simulated the uncertainty of the immigration process. However, the education phase was deemed too long, causing all players’ skills to converge and thus weakening the strategic value of the skill system. Lastly, the economic system was unbalanced, as the infrequent, low salaries left players without enough money to act, negatively impacting the overall experience.
This feedback is exactly the opposite of that from playtest2: in playtest2, players had few skills, while in playtest4 , they had too many. After analysis, we found that this was due to the different rules we adopted during the hosting – in playtest2, skills were consumables, while in playtest4, they were permanent.
Version 3
Based on Version 2 feedback, we mainly adjusted the game’s numerical system to change probabilistic outcomes (see above). The key point in designing the numerical system is to find a good anchor point, which is “ending the game between the fifth and sixth years”. Since this game mainly attracts players with the continuous emergence of new information and randomness, rather than strategy. If the game lasts too long, it may harm the experience (refer to the Fluxx experience in class). According to the new numerical system, which applies Sophia theory, players have fewer skills and limited things to do in the early stage, which triggers a sense of fear. As players’ understanding of the game system deepens and the surprises brought by the dice, their control gradually strengthens. In the later stage, the progress of each player’s immigration will not differ much, and this intense competition constitutes the core happiness of players.
Key Changes Made
| Type of Issue | Issue | What We Changed |
| Mechanic | Too difficult or too easy to achieve certain milestones. | Adjusted numerical system/probabilities (Numerical System Design1007) for different events |
| Usability | Players felt there were too many rules to memorize and thought it was difficult to follow along. | Add a “path to success” diagram in the middle of the board to show the different ways to get Visas and Green Cards, including specific requirements. |
| Usability | Players were confused by die roll probability rules. | Added probability rules (success ranges) on Job Cards |
| Usability | Players found it difficult to quickly read and memorize all the Skills requirements on Job and Achievements cards, especially when they had to think strategically | Replace Skills requirements from text to icons (e.g. trophy icon represents the Leadership skill) |
| Usability | Limited space from Seasons wheel. | Instead of a wheel, we fit Seasons in a rectangular column and integrated it into the main game board. |
Version 3 – Playtest 6
The playtest feedback showed that the game successfully conveys the long, stressful, and uncertain nature of the immigration process. However, the game’s mechanics need rebalancing, as players found it too difficult to acquire the necessary skills for jobs, causing the game’s pace to slow.
To our surprise, players showed a strong tendency to cooperate at the beginning of the game. Although the game did not proceed to the end, towards the later stage, with only one winner and some players getting closer to victory, a competitive tendency emerged (the same was true in Playtest 4). This dynamic aligns with our observations of the immigrant community: due to the scarcity of resources, immigrants tend to cooperate to obtain resources from outside the group. However, also due to the scarcity of resources (such as potential marriage partners and job opportunities), immigrant groups tend to turn competitive later on, and even internal conflicts may arise. There is also a saying in the immigrant community that “people from the same country are most likely to betray you.” This phenomenon was reflected in the game, indicating that the game has achieved a reasonable abstraction of real-world rules and created an effective immersive experience. Players will find themselves “having to cooperate” and “having to compete” in this situation, thereby gaining an understanding of the behavioral motivations of immigrant groups.
Version 4
In the final version, since the outcome of the game has been determined and verified, we mainly focused on optimizing the rule presentation and art design. During this process, Angela and Evelyn used Figma to create boards and cards, and then printed and packaged them. Tianze revised the rules and wrote the working documents.
Key Changes Made
| Type of Issue | Issue | What We Changed |
| Mechanic | The Education phase took too long and players said it wasn’t as engaging. | Remove the Education phase. Distribute Skill cards to all players from the start. |
| Mechanic | Some players didn’t have enough skills to get a Job. | To improve chances of getting skills, start teh game by distributing 8 skills and allowing users to pick 2 to discard. We also allowed players to keep all Skill cards and accumulate them over time, instead of “cashing” them in for goods. This also reflects real life since people don’t give up skills but retain them. |
| Mechanic | In the middle of the game, players ran out of Achievement cards in the Public Area so no one could attempt Achievements until Fall (wait 3 rounds) | Instead of adding 1 Achievement card every Fall, add 2 Achievement cards. |
Version 4 – Playtest 7
The final playtest was successful—paleyrs were engaged, felt they had control over their outcomes, and enjoyed some degree of randomness via “Policy” cards. We made one minor change based on an issue with the Achievement cards. In particular, in the middle of the game, players ran out of Achievement cards in the Public Area so no one could attempt Achievements until Fall (wait 3 rounds). To address this, instead of adding 1 Achievement card every Fall, we changed the rule to add 2 Achievement cards.
Photos/Videos of Game Testing
Link to “Print at Home” Version (Link to Figma)
Photos of Packaging (Link to Figma)
Playtest Videos
In Class October 8th Playtest Part 1
Players expressed that they learned a lot about the immigration system and that our updated board with paths to immigration was helpful (0:55 to 2:05)
In Class October 8th Playtest Part 2
Players were confused about the promotion system, so we added little rule cards to clarify rules that weren’t on the board (0:59 to 2:22)
Player expressed that we made a lot of changes from the first version of the game to the almost final version (3:18 to 3:33)
In Class October 8th Playtest Part3
Players found it too difficult to get jobs/the education phase took too long, which is why we got rid of the education phase and made jobs attemptable even if a player doesn’t have all the skills (0:00 to 1:30)
International students player comments on how realistic the game is (0:00-0:20)
Players become more comfortable trading skills and making strategic decision (0:20-0:53)
Positive milestones and unexpected events make players engaged (0:53-1:13)
