When creating World Dumbination I wanted to make a game which I would like to play with my friends! I like strategy games but also like a lot of interaction between the players. When your friends are over for a game night, it should be no reason to just sit around the table silently pushing cubes! In World Dumbination you interact with your fellow players all the time.
I also wanted to create a game that starts off a bit unbalanced. Since players have different starting points it gives an extra edge to the game. It also makes it more fun to play over and over as you can change the nation and starting point and try some different tactics.
The theme of the game helps setting the mood, so players are quite quickly into playing a fearful dictator or a less gifted president. The theme also makes it easier to get friends that don’t play board games that often to join in, since world politics is something most has some kind of knowledge about. And playing some of the craziest world leaders gets the engagement up immediately.
I knew I had to play this game a lot of times, so I didn’t want it to be a game where the most experienced player wins all the time. By adding some luck in form of Dumbness cards the game can suddenly change completely and that adds a lot of fun to the game. The Dumbness cards also have some clever catch up mechanics, giving advantages to players that may be a little behind. So throughout the game everyone can win, but it is of course a bigger chance coming up with the best tactics. If you want a more serious feel and less luck in the game it is of course possible to play the game without the Dumbness cards.
I think the game suits a whole range of different settings. It can be played at your local gaming club, at game nights with your friends. Families were also the youngest has some interest in politics think this is fun. It can be played by couples where some co-operation comes very natural. It can even be played as a fun party game before going out on town! All these settings are tested with great success. I can also add a little warning that the game can trigger sides of people you didn’t know they had. The sweetest girl can quickly become an aggressive war loving president when playing World Dumbination! 🙂
The game is a step up in difficulty from mainstream games, but with some concentration it is not that difficult to learn. I feel I made things quite logical, and something is actually easier to understand by inexperienced players, probably because some new mechanics are unfamiliar to experienced players. The game are also complex enough for experienced players, there is a lot of options and different strategies making the game a challenge to master.
The game is available to play on Tabletopia here (it will be published properly soon): https://tabletopia.com/playground/players/post-user20180922/dgky62
