Preliminary rules and cards see here in google doc.
Our game explores datacenters as a sociotechnical system shaped by infrastructure, technology, economics, government, and community interests. Rather than convincing players that datacenters are “good” or “bad,” we want them to be prepared to confront the complicated question about datacenters our society faces.
Players (particularly middle- and high-school students) take on the roles of technology companies, governments, and nonprofits, each with overlapping but conflicting goals. Players build datacenters by combining forces and their decisions affect three shared systems: Power/Water Stability, Community Benefit, and Profits. As they do so they develop a richer mental model of the physical and social infrastructure behind “the cloud” and LLMs.
This game combines Jessica’s desire for pedagogically and technically sound learning, with Alexander’s desire for a strategic multiplayer (sometimes) adversarial dynamic and Judy’s requirement that the game be able to be learned in less than 10 minutes.The competition, negotiation, asymmetric roles, temporary alliances, and shared-resource constraints contribute to fun from challenge and fellowship. Players must strategize to win while continually bargaining with people whose interests only partially align with their own.
Questions:
- Can someone actually learn this in 10 minutes? This was our initial wish (established after being traumatized by the Farming game we played in class). However, we now have about 100 cards, effects that land in future rounds, a build order, and a few cards that break the build order. If you had to cut one thing first, what would it be?
- Is bluffing okay for 12-year-olds? Broken promises are part of what makes the negotiation fun. We are unsure whether, with middle schoolers, it might start to feel personal or mean. Is this something we should actually worry about, and if so, how should we soften it?
- Are we accidentally taking a side? We say we don’t want to tell players whether datacenters are good or bad. But reading the cards back, Tech often causes the harm and Government or Nonprofit cleans it up (which kind of mirrors the reality). Does the game come across as having an opinion, and does that matter for what we’re trying to do?
