Game Metadata
Game Name: Broke the Game
Designer/Developer: Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center
Platform: Board Game
High-level Instructional Goal: Learn to make decisions during financial hardship
Link to Game: https://brokethegame.com/get-the-board-game/
Educational Goals:
- To push the boundaries of the player’s preconceived notions about poverty in the United States
- To build empathy among players so they can better sensitize or understand what people in poverty experience in the United States
Game Elements
Mechanics:
Objects
- Colored Tokens- Each player gets a colored token that represents their character on the board game
- Chits- Each player gets two choice chips, they use this to vote on Choice 1 and Choice 2 for each Situation
- Character Cards- Each player gets a character card that matches the color of their token. The character cards contain profiles of individuals who are in difficult economic circumstances.
- Situation Cards- Situation cards are read in each turn. The top of the card indicates the color of the characters that the situation applies to. The Situation Cards describe difficult life situations in which players have to vote for either Choice 1 or Choice 2. The bottom of the card shows the results of each choice.
- Help Cards- Players can use the Help Card if they want help from another player.
- Star Cards- Players can use the Star Card when they land on star spaces on the board. This helps them move closer towards Financial Stability.
Rules & Actions:
- Choosing Who Goes First- Players with the least amount of money in their wallet goes first. Then players take turns clockwise.
- When It’s a Player’s Turn- The player draws a Situation Card and reads the description. There are two choices on the card that the other players have to individually decide on. The other players whom the Situation applies have to vote for either Choice 1 or Choice 2. Once votes are in, the player reads the results which describe the impact of their choices. The player can also choose to use Third Choice Privilege, which proposes a third realistic alternative. The other players can vote thumbs up or thumbs down. If the majority vote thumbs up, the player moves 3 steps out of the spiral. If the majority vote thumbs down, the player moves 3 steps into the spiral. In the result of a tie, toss the small die. If the result is an even number, move out of the spiral 3 spaces. If the result is an odd number, move into the spiral 3 spaces.
- Use the Help Card- Player can ask another player for help in the game to bring them closer to Financial Stabilit
- Use the Star Card- If a player lands on a star, they can use the star card to boost them towards Financial Stability. If they land on another star, they can use an additional star card.
- Goal: The game ends when all Situation Cards have been drawn. The person closest to Financial Stability is the winner.
What kind of prior knowledge does it assume they have?
This game assumes that the player is aware of different socio-economic situations. It assumes that players have their own preconceived notions of what poverty is like in the United States.
What possible transfer opportunities could there be for this knowledge?
After playing this game, I think players can build empathy towards people who live in poverty. I think this game also provides a more realistic and sobering view of what poverty is like in the United States.
The core game loop is to make choices that will help the player reach Financial Stability.
There are inner loops such as voting on choices, creating a third choice and using the Help or Star Cards to help the player move closer to Financial Stability.
There are macro loops such as deciding whether to help other players or stay as close to Financial Stability as possible throughout the game.
Learning Mechanisms
I think the game builds empathy among players by humanizing the character profiles. This is achieved by using stories and example cases instead of stating facts in the Character Card. For example, one of the characters is a single mother with children. Another character is homeless and is struggling to find housing. What was also interesting was that each character had an unequal number of cards and started at various points on the spiral of poverty. This was a realistic reflection that people’s situations can be very different from one another. By creating stories and not statistics, players have the chance to role play and build a connection with characters in these situations. This makes the situations more memorable than if they were abstract concepts (Arthur C. Graesser. 2009).
The game activates preconceptions by describing situations first that trigger our prior knowledge about poverty (Kenneth R Koedinger, Julie L Booth, and David Klahr. 2013). For instance, one of the Situation Cards read that the player is at a grocery store and is about to use their food stamp when their old high school flame appears. Players have time to process this scenario, and the immediate reaction may naturally be to use the food stamp. One preconceived notion can be that people in poverty take advantage of government benefits and have no shame using them.
These preconceptions are challenged when players are given two choices. In this case, players can either choose to use the food stamp and swallow their pride or use cash because they’re embarrassed to show that they have no money. Neither of these choices are clearly better than the other and are often difficult ones to make. This implements the Identity Principle, in which the player shifts from being their actual selves to becoming the character in the game world. They have to make real decisions based on what their character would do (James Paul Gee. 2007).
By reading out these choices, I personally learned more about the emotional and mental challenges that come with poverty. It made me reflect more carefully how pride and self image is also affected, not just financial or physical circumstance. People in poverty sometimes don’t like to admit they are poor and need assistance.
Lastly in this game, there is a use of sense making and understanding. Colors are used to help players know which token, chits and star cards belong to which character profile. The colors also emphasize the fact that different players have different situations and perspectives. The spiral path on the board is also a visual symbol of the emotional turmoil that comes up with descending into poverty.
Overall Critique
I think this is a good example of a game that succeeds both as a game and as a learning experience when it comes to building empathy with people who live in poverty in the United States. The Choices in the Situation Card are well written in that there is no clear decision that is better than the other. Both choices are difficult to make, which emphasizes how constrained a life in poverty can be. The Help Card is also sobering in that there can be consequences to helping others, because it may set you back towards your goal of Financial Stability if you are also in poverty. This challenges the players to think of the moral ambiguity that comes with being someone who has limited resources. The unpredictability of the Situation Cards and the outcomes from one’s decisions really show how quickly one can step back into poverty.
There were moments, however, when I felt that the game made it too easy for the player to reach Financial Stability if they know what are the right decisions to make. I think it would be helpful to have an additional guide somewhere that further describes why someone would make one decision over the other to better understand what is going on in the mind of someone in poverty. I think it would also be worth exploring a mechanic in which players have a certain amount of money and there would be situations that would make it harder for them to save than to spend on living expenses.