Shasn : A political Strategy Board Game
SHASN - Game Design
Location
Mumbai
How might we engage a
Team
Zain Memon,
Big Thanks
To Memsys
Background
In the second semester at DSI SVA, Nishita, Sherrie and I read a book called 'SuperFandom: How our obsessions are changing what we buy and who we are' authored by Aaron M. Glazer and Zoe Fraade-Blanar. The book made us realize how the world is running on a cyclic chain of brands creating fans, fans creating brands and so on. It shed light onto the bigger picture of the fandom culture that is rooting from humans beings' deeper sense of being in community. We saw how important it was to have this knowledge, especially as designers creating services and systems for the world and felt the need to explain our learnings of the book to our classmates in an experiential way.
Shasn is a political strategy board game that I worked on during my time at Memesys Culture Lab, Mumbai.
The brief was to design a multiplayer strategy board game that imitates the working of the Indian political system and the important role of politicians. It is a distillation of democratic principles and insights creating an engaging, complex strategy game that echoes the real world processes of political cooperation and manipulation. The game has encouraged open dialogue about politics among the common people & makes one realize what choices we make when given power.
WHAT
Results
Inspired by the main ideas of superfandom and its transformative impact on culture and business, we designed a 40 minute creative facilitation in the form of a roleplaying activity to allow participants to unfold the superfandom phenomenon and fandom-based economy themselves from the mundane details in our lives. Through this facilitation, we showed the power of fandom as well as sparked new ideas of fandom in terms of social change.
WHY
Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla (co-founders of Memesys culture lab) directed a non-fiction drama film called 'An Insignificant Man' in 2017 in which they shadowed Arvind Kejriwal and his political party. It was the first time people could see the inner workings, thoughts, dilemmas and strategies of an Indian political party. The movie created an impactful dialogue surrounding politics and they didn't want to stop there.
My initial brief was to expand the movie's theme to further explain the working of the Indian political system and the important role of politics. After going through numerous design directions, we realized that gamification was an apt tool to convey our message.
To view my entire design process, click here.
OBJECTIVE OF THE GAME
The objective of the game is to engage people in conversation about the working of politics and to question the issues of the world. To understand the decisions one has to make as a politician and what effects it has in the long run. To understand whether a politician can stick to their ideals as well as run a nation.
Creating a game which makes people think why.
+communication skills
+business skills
+tactical skills
+tackling issues
+longterm strategic thinking
+realtime political thinking
+improving foresight
+making decisions
+developing political concepts
+make aware of world issues
Watch these videos to know more about the game and see what people have to say about it.
Shasn has been playtested by over 2000 people, globally.
It is going to launch on kickstarter
*Shasn was initially named Manifesto
GAME DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
01. theme
The Election Process :
1. Formation of Constituencies
2. Filling of nominations
3. Election campaign
-
Election manifesto
-
Electioneering activities
4. Polling process
5. Counting of votes
6. Declaration of results
02. structure
Candidates
Build Manifesto
Get resources
Convince voters
Gain majority
Win election
03. components
Game Board = The state
Tokens = Voters
Punch board = Resources
Cards 1 = Ideology cards
Cards 2 = Voter Cards
04. gameplay
The game is starts with ideology question cards which asks a morally/socially/politically relevant question. Based on the answer, the player receives resources (funds/media/trust/clout) which allows one to influence voters and gain majority in electoral zones.
05. prototyping
Deciding the look and feel of every component, its material, finish and packaging.
PROTOTYPING & PLAYTESTING
_p.png)
Matt Groening, the creator of Simpsons and Futurama learning to play shasn
Tom Gruber, creator of Siri, lover of oceans, learning to play shasn
To view the entire design process of this project, click here.