With the 2016 presidential election coming in November, many have taken to television or video games to parody current events. For two creators based in San Francisco, the election is now, literally, in their hands.
Co-created by UA graduate Shane Russell, “Ameritocracy” is a card game where two to three players run for president, using cards to fundraise, recruit supporters and run a successful campaign trail to win the election. Each game lasts anywhere from 10–30 minutes to keep the pace of the game moving.
“It’s themed as a political game, but it’s actually pretty strategic,” Russell said. “I used to play ‘Magic the Gathering’ at Crimson Castle pretty much every week, so it’s very influenced by the games I used to play at Crimson Castle, including ‘Magic.’”
Along with Jim McCollum, a child therapist living in San Francisco, the two took to crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in early May to help them produce the game and deliver it to a wider audience. The game’s campaign collected over $13,000.
“We thought about maybe approaching a traditional publisher, but we really had a strong vision for what we wanted the game to be,” McCollum said. “We really had an idea that we wanted to portray both the things that we thought should be sort of mocked and have a satirical take on them in American politics as well as the things that we felt were inspiring and positive.”
Though the game successfully hit its goal on Kickstarter, the game wasn’t always a guaranteed success for the two. The game went through several revisions through play testing with groups and going back to design documents before reaching the crowdfunding stage.
“For the first like year and a half we made it, it really sucked,” Russell said. “It was not very fun and there were a lot of imbalances and it sort of always played the same way. We started to tweak things and all of a sudden, it sort of just balanced out and became a lot more interesting and that’s when we decided to actually try and produce it.”
The two said that playing with the local community and getting feedback from Kickstarter backers has positively impacted the structure of the game, letting them know which features work and which don’t. Russell and McCollum have also released a print-and-play version of the game, allowing anyone interested to get started playing “Ameritocracy” with a reduced starter set of cards.
“We wanted to make the print-and-play a satisfying experience for people but not overwhelm them with a bunch of arts and crafts they’d have to do before playing the game,” McCollum said.
The full game will feature a full deck of over 100 illustrated cards and special cards that can help turn the tide of the election. The game will be available in September, though a retail price hasn’t been determined.
Though “Ameritocracy” hasn’t yet shipped, Russell and McCollum said that they’re already at work planning new games, with more print-and-play style experiences being high on their list of ideas. McCollum said that an expansion set for “Ameritocracy” could also be a possibility, adding new cards.
“Ameritocracy” can be found on Facebook, Kickstarter and on the official website, ameritocracygame.com. The two encourages feedback and often sends out updates detailing the development of the game.
