During this immersive summer semester, we explored and played a wide range of tabletop, digital, and roleplaying games with the goal of developing our own, playable game by the end of the semester.
Inspired by local elections, and the “Reacting to the Past,” genre of role-playing games, I developed “Propaganda,” a game which teaches the players about the dangers of disinformation and how it can spread. When playing other disinformation games in this genre, I felt that the games rewarded users for being “good” at spreading disinformation. This subverted the ultimate goal of teaching learners that disinformation is bad.
In Propaganda, each of the players represents a presidential advisor in 2050 with a collective win condition (save the government from collapse) and a personal win condition (which is a secret). The players can choose to win as a group, or win as an individual, but it will come at price, losing the trust of every other player in the game.
This game is designed for learners 13+ and is ready to play. I am actively seeking play-testers to provide feedback, with the hopes of publishing this game in the near future.
