Election Board Game Using Segmented State Spaces and Activity Cards
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Solution Overview
Problem
There is a lack of board games that educate and entertain people about the US electoral voting system and recent historical and political events, making it difficult to find engaging and informative entertainment options.
Innovation Solution
A board game called 'Stop the Steal—Who Wants to be the President?' that allows players to act as presidential candidates, aiming to gain electoral votes by traveling around a game board representing US states, with features like electoral vote cards, activity cards, and game rules that simulate the electoral process, allowing players to interact and learn about political events.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If a board game is designed to educate about the US electoral process, then educational value is improved, but game complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The game board is segmented into individual state spaces representing different US states, each with specific electoral vote values. This segmentation allows the complex electoral process to be broken down into manageable, discrete steps that players can understand and interact with individually, rather than presenting the entire electoral system as a monolithic complex structure.
Solution Approach 2:
Activity cards serve as intermediaries between players and the electoral process mechanics. These cards mediate complex interactions by providing structured scenarios and challenges that simplify the representation of political events, allowing players to engage with complex electoral concepts through manageable card-based interactions rather than direct complex rule applications.
2Loss of information
If the game includes detailed electoral vote mechanics and activity cards, then educational accuracy is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The game mechanics are designed to be self-explanatory through the board layout and card instructions. Each state space clearly displays its electoral vote value, and activity cards contain self-contained scenarios with embedded instructions, allowing players to understand and operate the complex electoral mechanics without requiring extensive external rulebook references or complex adjudication.
Solution Approach 2:
Electoral votes are pre-assigned to each state space on the board before gameplay begins. This preliminary assignment of vote values to geographic locations allows players to immediately understand the stakes of each state without complex calculations during play, maintaining educational accuracy about the electoral college system while simplifying operational decisions during the game.
Data Source
AI summary
While there are numerous board games available in United States and worldwide, the current invention is intended to provide a fun and educational board game centered on the electoral voting process of the United States, but also with other educational and historical content contained therein, including a geographic, colorized map of the United States, a depicture image of the events of Jan. 6, 2020 at Capitol Hill, a showing of all 50 states providing the path of play of the game with each states geometric shape, images representing both the Democratic and Republican parties, the seal of the president of the United States, and figurines and/or game pieces representing elements or activities germane to the United states such as the White House, a voting ballot box, a courtroom chair, a gold bar, a top hat such as worn by Abraham Lincoln, a microphone such as used by any president since the invention of the microphone, and the key such as the key to any US city or the key to freedom.