USC Futures of Democracy Collaboratory and Prague conference
Our Futures of Democracy board game kit
From June 24-26th, 2019, my team and I had the opportunity to present at the annual Philosophy and Play conference in Prague at the Czech Academy of Sciences. This year, the conference explored topics at the intersection of philosophy, play, and democracy.
Our team, consisting of Professor Kiki Benzon (Media Arts and Practice—School of Cinematic Arts), Professor Jeff Watson (Game Design — School of Cinematic Arts), Cindy Syren, Mahira Raihan, Kathryn Dullerud, Jordan Kessler, and I, worked for the past school year in a research collaboratory sponsored by the Ahmanson Lab in the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study at USC.
Team (from left to right): Professor Kiki Benzon, Cindy Syren, Iris Kim, conference attendee, Mahira Raihan, Kathryn Dullerud, Jordan Kessler, Jeff Watson
In our project, called Futures of Democracy, we explored the core tenets of democratic institutions, conducting research into current-day political issues around the world. We then brainstormed ways in which we could encapsulate concepts having to do with democracy and political processes into a gameplay format.
Our final prototype, reached after months of iteration and playtesting within our own group and with helpful outside volunteers, resulted in four gameplay experiences in a board game kit that explore 1) political campaigns, 2) the political personality of a candidate, 3) corporate influence within politics, and 4) the polarized American two-party system. By structuring these somewhat heavy and complex topics in a game format, we are utilizing play, playfulness, and satire to encourage participants to engage in thought-provoking and open-minded discussions with their peers, and to introduce what can feel like daunting issues in an approachable manner.
After a final post-conference iteration, we will offer a version of our packaged gameplay experience online in the near future for purchase to anyone who wishes to experience it. We’ll also have it available at the USC Libraries in the Ahmanson Lab. Our ultimate goal is to be able to use it in classrooms for educational purposes for students and professors alike, so that we all can envision the Futures of Democracy together in a creative, fun, and engaging manner.
A bit about my game—Let’s Make a Bill!—and the underlying issues I wanted to explore:
Facing the harsh reality of American politics today requires admitting that it seems to be in its most divisive and polarized state yet. Many of our contentious issues exist in a stark binary defined by partisan lines. Politicians and the public hold either a staunchly liberal or conservative view on complex policies with little room for nuanced negotiations or perspectives in the middle ground. This causes a highly predictable partisan divide when representatives vote on comprehensive bills in Congress, the American legislative body.
In addition to increasing partisan polarization, there has been an uptick in the Congressional use of omnibus bills, which “bundle several appropriations measures into a single, giant law, and full-year Continuing Resolutions to resolve annual spending disputes” (Pew Research). Omnibus bills are also common at state-level legislatures, where they are known for containing quietly packaged controversial provisions that slip by unnoticed in a larger legislative bundle that both parties can agree on passing. These last-minute massive spending bills are critiqued for their hasty turnaround between publication and scheduled voting, leaving almost no time for proper scrutiny and structured debate on spending issues, much less adequate time to digest all the provisions in the bill.
These massive omnibus bills have also budget resolutions that have strong policy ramifications, such as increasing or decreasing funding for military and space programs, disaster relief aid, farm price supports, and border security. The controversy over the the 2018 fiscal year federal omnibus bill featured a publicized fiasco of Democratic and Republican lawmakers incapable of reaching any sort of compromise over immigration reform; they were ultimately unable to come up with a solution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that would propose a path forward for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children to qualify for the citizenship process.
With this game experience, I hope to create a fictitious space where each player holds a voting seat in a national legislature and must vote for both liberal and conservative policies that will culminate in a bill that includes perspectives from both parties. The bill will then be discussed by the players and prepared for public declaration.
The goal of the game is to put players in a scenario where they are forced to make political trade-offs while voting on a wide range of issues regarding social justice, the economy, the environment, foreign policy, domestic policy, and immigration, based on their own priorities and worldviews. They then imagine what it would be like to have these policies enacted and enforced within American society, and how they are to explain the impacts of the polar-opposite policies in the bill to their constituents.
Some thoughts on the process:
Going into the game design process quite blindly, it was challenging for all of us to start from scratch, not knowing anything about game design and gameplay save the casual game-playing in our own personal lives. Starting from the drawing board with far-fetched ideas thrown across our brainstorming sessions, to the actual prototype itself, to the rounds of playtesting, then further iterations, then playtesting again to create the final iteration that we’d be proud enough to present at an academic conference, was a wild and bumpy, but incredibly fulfilling, process.
Each time our group met to constructively critique one another’s games, or received feedback from a round of playtesting, it was illuminating to see how even the simplest of tweaks could alter the entire gameplay experience. For example, towards the beginning, my game originally prompted players to assume roles as representatives of various nations in order to create a global governance system. It was much too abstract and lacked any amount of structure for effective gameplay. So, like the rest of my teammates, I pivoted towards creating a simpler analog game experience. I truly appreciated operating within this cycle of receiving player feedback and then the subsequent incorporation of this feedback into my iterations, then playtesting again.
To break down complex issues into a simple, digestible format, which is what we attempted to do with our games, was much more difficult than I imagined. To explain political processes in lengthy essays and papers with large page counts and references is one thing, but to capture these complicated materials into a board game that can be played by students as young as middle schoolers is another. We had to boil down concepts and critiques related to democracy to its very bare bones in order to re-structure them in a simple multiplayer board and card game format.
Then, to tackle the psychology of the game player’s experience — how do you evoke certain emotions of frustration, anger, despair, humor, and joy within the gameplay itself? All while doing so in a manner that respects the autonomy and intelligence of the player, and deals sensitively with the incendiary and divisive political issues at hand? After all, we wanted our games to be fun and enthralling first and foremost, then educational second. What is the point of a game that you don’t even enjoy playing? Or a game that we couldn’t see ourselves playing just for fun during an evening gathering with our own friends? These were all issues we considered and took quite seriously during the game design process.
To guide our team through all of this formidable unknown were Jeff and Kiki. As empathetic, kind, and understanding mentors, they gave us free reign to craft and frame our own games, make copious mistakes, and direct our visions however we wished. They encouraged us to work as a cohesive team to use our strengths in our respective fields to full effect. They gave us guidance through our frustration, excitement, and roadblocks. This was one of the first times in my highly structured years of education that I experienced the process of truly Iearning through experimentation and iteration in an unstructured way, instead of simply being thrown into a rote memorization education system. And for that, I am sincerely grateful.
Overall, we hope to keep you updated with the progress of this project and any further announcements. Please reach out if you have any questions or comments!