The Economy, Stupid!
“The economy, stupid!” (in short TES) is a name of a new online game, that puts you in the role of a prime minister of a moderate size European country. Your task is to survive in office for the whole four-year term and win the next elections. You loose (sic) if your party loses the elections, or if you are removed from office before elections. The game is turn-based with each turn representing two months of game time.
Games are complex systems and much of the “fun factor” derived from playing games comes from learning the underlying hidden rules of the system. (See Theory of Fun.) This is why some of the best games (chess, Diplomacy, Go) have a simple surface rule set, but complex interactions that are hard to get the hang of under the surface. I think any complex system (government, economics, medicine, etc.) thus lends itself well to teaching through games. The tricky part then becomes presenting the rules in a way that is simple on the surface, for example by introducing a minimal subset and then expanding on it as the game progresses, without dumbing down the underlying structure.
