Name of the game

I was in group 4 and during class we had to develop a new type of game that had the learning goal to experiences the process of social evolution. This was not an easy task especially as we are not used to developing games, but overall we had good discussions and ideas until we ran out of time. We used changing conditions, limited information and imitation as our main guidelines to design the game.

So what does the game comprise of? First of all, all players are a firm that produces products with three different symbolic (neutral) characteristics with three values each, see table 1. Behind these abstract shapes lies a secret meaning as can be seen in table 2. The goal of the firms is to maximize profit.

Shape	Feel	Colour
square	soft	red
cirkel	medium	blue
triangle	hard	yellow

Table 1: characteristics

Characteristic	Secret meaning
square	SUV
circle	MPV
triangle	Urban Car
red	Diesel
blue	Electric
yellow	Gasoline
soft	Steel
medium	Organic
hard	Carbon

Table 2: Secret meanings

Each round the different firms choose a combination that goes to market and the bank gives back a final value based on consumer preference. So throughout the rounds the firms will get to know the consumer preference, however the tricky aspect is that they only get to know the final outcome and do not know how much of the value is allocated to which characteristic. In order to become successful they could for instance imitate a sequence of a competitor or learn from them by comparing their sequence to their own.

In the beginning a certain sequence is set as the optimal sequence that is most sustainable, but due to market demand, policy (cards, more on that later) and other developments (technology) the money which can be made by this varies. The optimum set of characteristics is not static and therefore could change over the course of the game. For instance one scenario could be that urban electric organic cars would be the optimal set in the end of the game, but that in the beginning due to the premature battery techniques or dirty electricity diesel actually is the more environmental friendly option. Another scenario could be that SUVs all of the sudden become very popular until policy appears that favors urban cars. Urban cars however bring smaller profits, but when done in big numbers could become more profitable than the SUVs that had a big profit margin. 

After each round a random policy card will be placed central on the table for all players to see and adjust their strategy too. This policy is geared towards the most sustainable option and therefore players can learn from it. As the optimum outcome is said the game plays a bit like mastermind and in the end when the game is over the secret meaning of the abstract characteristics will be revealed and things will make more sense.

We choose to go for abstract characteristics in order to not have any relation with more earthly things that lead to a more predictable behaviour, as we all know instinctively that a small car is probably more sustainable than a big one. 

Let the games begin!