Race for the White House

Players and Content

The game is intended for players that are twelve years and older.  Players are learning about the election process by pretending to be candidates.

Game play

Players haggle over who plays the Democratic candidate or the Republican one.  They pick their home states and begin playing by rolling the dice.  Players can add votes in two ways.  Some game board spots allow players to place votes in certain states, regions, and voting blocks.  Players can also place some votes “anywhere” following a complicated set of rules.  There are serious consequences if you run out of campaign money.

Critique

This game has a lot that resembles a real race.  For example, there are five voting blocks that players are attempting to get votes from – liberal, conservative, minority, union, and farm.  However, I didn’t care for the board design.  A square has no relation at all to the real United States.  The rules for adding voters “anywhere” do not seem to have any relation to a real presidential race.  In addition, there is an unnecessary penalty for not declaring a state won.  Despite its’ differences to a real race, I think that for middle school students this game would give a realistic feel of many of the critical elements to an actual race.

Links

Rules for the game

Interested in learning more or purchasing the game?

Go to ELGames.com.