Game Overview
Sillypolitik is a single-player card strategy game where each card represents an important institution in a society, such as a Treasury or News Agency. The player competes against a heuristic AI for control of these institutions by funding illegal activities and exposing their opponent's efforts. The art style features a mix of art deco, 90s graphics, and surrealism.
Above: A work in progress gameplay video.
The Story
Rufus Krieg is a laundromat owner and a Harvard political science graduate from the town of Bungleburg. One day, after taking some nondescript pills, he hallucinates a man who calls himself 'General Kapusta' who insists that Rufus must take over the world, starting with his homeowner's association.
My Role
On this project, I was both the team lead and gameplay designer. Initially, I wrote and presented the pitch and recruited students to the project.
During preproduction, I paper prototyped the game's mechanics and documented the rules.
During production I determined milestone goals with my producer, Anna Fulton, designed levels, scripted card abilities and the target selection system, and helped bugfix and advise other team members on how to program their systems.
The Team
Member | Role | Link to Their Work |
Lev Working (Me) | Team Lead / Designer | You're here! |
Anna Fulton | Producer, 2D Artist | |
Mack Moore | Lead Programmer, AI | |
Steven Ho | Programmer | |
Camden Gain | Artist | - |
George Abrahms | UI Designer | |
Samuel Clouse | Audio Designer |
Game Philosophy
Here are the design choices and considerations I made for the game, both for quantitative elements such as game mechanics, and more intangible issues such as narrative and leadership.
Mechanics
Economy & Loops - In order to be interesting to the player, this game requires a lot of looping values, flows of funding and corruption for the player to take advantage of.
The biggest example of this is the Tax ability, which collects a flat amount of income from corporate cards and redistributes it to government cards. This gives players a couple of strategic decisions that might not otherwise be there. If the player tries to win through corporate income, a card that Taxes is a huge obstacle. If the player is trying to win through government cards, they might privatize their opponents' cards.
Compromise with Practicality- One of our game's major goals was to create a heuristic AI that could competently play the game, and that requires limiting the scope of design. Some ideas that are fun and evocative were cut because of their difficulty to score.
Narrative
Contrast, Gradients - This game represents follows the descent into absurdity and madness of a protagonist that is devoured by his ambition, who loses his grip on reality as a result. Consequently, names, dialogue, places, and mechanics must grow stranger and more complex over time.
Architecture
Modularity- From the start, we used practices common in the software industry, especially inheritance, and overriding to ensure that. For example, all abilities in the game, activated or passive, card or player, inherit from the same component class, and then have its functions overrode as necessary.
Leadership
Communication- Many interpersonal conflicts, integration issues, and differences in vision, occur due to a breakdown in communication. When I perceived a difference in opinion or vision in the game, I created small, informal meetings between team members to bridge the gap. I also worked to be transparent about largescale design and scope decisions.
Autonomy - Due to the team being very talented and experienced, I sought to place only necessary requirements, and for aesthetic considerations especially only offered my opinion rather than demands. This resulted in most team relationships being frictionless, productive, and rewarding.
Design Process
Here is an overview of the way that I designed levels for this game:
Denote narrative requirements.
Brainstorm new design spaces to explore.
Paper prototype the level.
Playtest the level for game balance and interest.
Request new features from programmers.
Script card abilities.
Above: A very early iteration of the prototype, back when the rules and gameplay were still hazy and many changes had to be made on the fly.
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