Designer Diary: Experience the Nighttime Glow of Election Night

When you see a game described as "two-player, card-driven", you can be fairly sure you've entered wargame territory.

There are exceptions, though, such as 1960: The Making of the President, and for those who like the full-throttle dedication of two-player games – but are ho-hum about wargames – here's some good news: Print & Play Productions will soon be offering my brother Tom's and my Election Night.

Hmmm, so the game is card-driven, with matched decks and multi-option cards? Check. A medium-to-heavyweight with just two pages of rules proper? Check. And it's got theme a-plenty? Check!

Years in the Making

When my brother and I were kids growing up overseas, we were cut off from much of American culture. But one Christmas we received the 3M bookcase game Mr. President as a gift from our parents. By the time we returned to the states, we had a full set of house rules and knew the names of many of the candidate cards by heart. We then sought out other 3M bookcase games like Twixt, Feudal and Origins of WWII, but never found another that was anywhere near as fun.

Fast-forward to 1990 and a notice in Avalon Hill's The General seeking playtesters for an upcoming title: Candidate. I signed up and have my name in the credits to show. I was very much into play-by-mail gaming at the time and organized a group to play "Our Next President", a game using some of the ideas that had occurred to me when providing feedback for Candidate.

Fast-forward again to 2004 and a demo at the World Boardgaming Championships that saw me offer a re-constituted "Mr. President" using updated electoral vote numbers and other tweaks and tinkering my brother and I had instituted from the many times we'd played over the years.

Finally, fast-forward to the summer of 2008, and in the thick of an election campaign, my brother is temporarily laid off and so stays with us at the farm for most of a year. By then, I had a working prototype that we played nearly every day, sometimes more than once a day, and every few plays we'd change the rules or reprint the mapboard or fiddle with the Advertising $$ amounts.

Once we were satisfied with what we had we sent the design to three different parties to have it played "blind". The first was in Great Britain and as luck would have it, our volunteer was as thoroughgoing as could be. Our second playtester wasn't particularly impressed, though he did contribute one valuable suggestion. And finally, our third playtester, someone steeped in presidential election games, gave it a thumbs up.

All that took a surprisingly long time. After each playtester reported back, we put the game through a long series of trials, searching for ways to overcome any perceived weakness.

Similar Games

Election Night does draw from 3M's Mr. President in that at the top of each card in a player's deck are several colored stripes corresponding to regions on the map where a player might campaign. Each stripe has the name of a state on it. The idea is that you campaign in one of the six regions on the map, playing cards-in-hand that have the relevant stripe – all right out of Mr. President. But that's it for similarities.

Cards from Mr. President (left) and one from Election Night (right)

Another influence is Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard's 1960: The Making Of The President. Here, the big difference is that in Election Night a player defines his positions on the issues at the start of the game, so instead of the contest being based on the 1960 election (Kennedy vs. Nixon), the focus is on a hypothetical present-day campaign.

By the way, our final playtester suggested we include candidate settings for each of 2012's likely candidates. For example, if you wanted to try out a Ron Paul strategy, what positions would you take on the five issues at the beginning of a game? I have position sets for all the seemingly serious candidates – Obama for the Dems.; Romney, Bachmann, Paul, and for perspective, Palin and Reagan – and will post these after due consultation. (Editor's note: Please do not discuss candidate merits in the comments section, "seemingly serious" or otherwise. —WEM)

The similarities with 1960 are actually few. Red and blue cubes are placed on the board, but unlike in 1960, those in Election Night appear as the result of an opponent playing a polling card, which forces information to be shared; normally cards and the votes they represent are played face down, and thus unknown. So, unlike in 1960, where one can know which way the game is going by looking at the board, Election Night is usually a surprise right up through the endgame "Home Stretch".

Another difference is that the drawbag for Election Night doesn't contain cubes, a la 1960 (an ingenious mechanism, BTW, for evening out a game's luck factor!), but fifteen "News Cycle" tiles that simulate the twists and turns of media attention, as well as another four tiles representing three Presidential and one Vice-Presidential debate.

Multi-Use Cards

Having gone through a phase years ago in which my brother and I played games like Paths of Glory, I picked up the multiple use concept and have used it repeatedly.

In Election Night, you can either play a card to Campaign (laying down cards – and thus locking in votes – in a particular region) or to Strategize (akin to an event in 1960). An example of the latter is "Flip Flop", which allows you to switch one of your starting positions on the issues so as to immediately get a load of extra cards – but your opponent might then play "Attack Ad" and your standing on the Negatory Track will take a hit.

Making It Seem Real

Most game systems require that a player suspend disbelief and pretend that, for example, she is about to be president. This is because real life often mirrors the reality in our head and does this in real time, which is nearly impossible to imitate. In Election Night we use three strategies to at least try to make the game seem real:

• In each player's deck of 68 cards are nine marked "Timing". If used to Strategize, they increase your momentum track standing. (During the endgame you play a number of bonus cards that is double your momentum to "Get Out The Vote".) Take the card "Opposition Research", for example. It can be used for Strategizing only if it is played on the turn following an opponent's "Fat Cat Squeezer" (campaign contributions from those with "special interests") or "Wild" card. Thus, the game encourages you to sense when your opponent is about to wander ever so slightly out of bounds...and nail him.

• Except that in the above example, holding on to a card for more than a turn or two while waiting for a good time to play it will only slow you down – and in this game, finishing your deck first is very desirable. As a result, as the final action during a given turn, each player may place a single card from his hand into his deck at any level he chooses (though one may not "count, view nor leave cards protruding"). This enables many a cleverly crafted plan.

• But most important is the News Cycle. This is because when the News Cycle matches your own position on one of the five issues, which will happen approximately 33% of the time, you may campaign in two different regions at once, or if you advertise, play multiple ad disks in those two regions rather than only one disk in one region. Plus, playing cards for Strategy is often tied to the News Cycle. Thus, there is every reason to want to change the News Cycle when it favors your opponent – this is done by playing one of the 13 cards in each deck bearing an "NC" – and to fully exploit the News Cycle when opportunities arise.

And let's not forget political statistics as the game is based on them. For example, each side has a number of "base" states that comprise 129 out of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. (Base states are won by collecting and playing the two "Playing to the Base" cards in one's deck, plus a "Wild", but only if one's opponent has not taken centrist positions on the game's five issues.) These states almost always vote in a predictable manner, which disuades the Democrat, for example, from considering a "Southern strategy"...though given the right circumstances even that is possible.

How Long Are The Rules?

Earlier, I mentioned that the rules proper are a spare two pages. This is so players new to the game can walk right in and play. Yes, the rules include a separate strategy section, a FAQ sheet and three pages of "Heads Up" explanations of the more complicated concepts, but I'm a big believer in a "walk right in and play" rules length that doesn't hit the beginner with 20 pages just to get playing a practice game.

Jared Scarborough