Gotta make a board game...?

Question

I have an assignment in my economics class where I have to create a board game pertaining to economics in which kids would what to play. What kind of game should I make? Something like Monopoly or more like Life? What kind of spaces should I have on there? Any suggestions are appreciated!!!! Thanks!!!!!

Answer 1

Make a game involving credit cards, investments, bills and make it fun.

Answer 2

Avoid the Monopoly (roll the dice and move) model. If you break this down you find that you do not need players - it could run itself.

Instead, concentrate on Decision Points. Concentrate on what questions you want the players to answer. For example: should I spend this money or save it? If I save it can I earn this, this or this? Without meaningful decisions you have no chance of making a game 'fun'. Monopoly is a game that has no decisions at all - sure you can choose not to buy: but only if you also choose to lose. Many excellent games use no dice at all...

Also, don't get hung up on the shape/configuration of the 'board', if you have one. Consider other mechanisms, even ones that might seem irelevant to the subject. A lateral-thinking approach to this problem will help. What do I want to do? I want (for example) something that proves supply and demand. I can simulate this with different coloured beans that I swap from one pocket to another. I can simulate this this by building card houses - I need hearts to make my house, you need diamonds; we can swap cards but you will get ahead of me so I need to swap with you to get my cards but do it so that you don't get any from me. And so on.

Consider the game Acquire http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5 which is also a buy/sell game but uses a very different mechanism to Monolopoly. It does this by using a very abstract tile placement system that has nothing to do with real-estate or stock market speculation. However, the decisions you have to make mimic the decisions in real life - not literally, but figuratively. They are analogous problems and so the leasons are learned.

Check out Boardgamegeek and run an advanced search using economic, auction, negotiation or trading as the keywords for some examples of how this problem has been tackled by others.

Answer 3

I think that a simple stock market game would probably work. You could model it on 3M's Stocks and Bonds.

Players would start the game with capital and buy stocks in various companies (~6-12 stocks). Then in each round, roll the dice and consult a chart which shows gains or losses for the stocks. You could either roll each stock individually, or have one die roll affect all the stocks (e.g. the chart shows that some go up, and some go down, based on the die roll). You could make some of the stocks volatile (have great gains, but also great losses) and some that are "safe" (small consistent gain, but with less probability of losses). At the end of a round, players would have the opportunity to sell and buy stocks again based on their new market values -- so they could sell high and buy low. Run the game for a couple of rounds, and the player with the most money by cashing out their stocks after a fixed number of rounds is the winner.

For more information on 3M's Stocks and Bonds, see:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/1590

For the record, I've never played Stocks and Bonds, this concept is just a general idea of how I think it plays. I know the game also involves some other elements like event cards that affect dramatic market shifts.