As we mentioned yesterday, our crowdfunding campaign for One Billion Users is in its final hours. Although we’re still below the funding threshold, we did get a decent bump yesterday, so there’s still a chance we’ll reach our goal. And just in time, Adi Robertson at The Verge has written a very nice review of the game.
My social network was booming. I had attracted top-tier users: the coveted Trendsetter, the popularity-lured Investor. I had bested server problems and bad press. Then, somebody picked a particularly unlucky card out of the One Billion Users deck I was testing. Sixty seconds later, I had lost it all.
One Billion Users is a new card game from Techdirt and Diegetic Games, and at its best, it lends itself to moments like this. Currently in its last days on Kickstarter, intended to fund a single run of the game rather than a wide release, it’s the latest in a string of projects from the team-up — including the digital games Moderator Mayhem and Trust & Safety Tycoon as well as CIA: Collect It All, a card game built on real CIA training materials.
One Billion Users is a lot less nerdy than any of these. It’s inspired by the relatively simple 1906 racing-themed card game Touring, better known through a popular 1950s adaptation called Mille Bornes. Only, instead of trying to drive the fastest while sandbagging competitors, you’re trying to build the biggest social network while sabotaging everyone else.
Adi spent a lot of time with the game and even sent me a very, very thoughtful list of suggestions, including some house rules that she played with, which have helped us explore potential different final rules.
The article does a good job explaining the game, how it’s different from Touring/Mille Bornes, and also the feeling the game creates for players:
…ultimately, as a longtime spectator of social media shenanigans, my favorite part was deciding which social network I was building. My influencer-filled stronghold? The golden age of Twitter. Its sad, empty shell? Now I was running X.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one doing that. “I find it interesting to see how networks in the game pretty quickly develop a kind of culture,” Masnick says. One of his testers, a high schooler, realized midway through the game that his network was hopelessly and intractably toxic. His response, announced to the rest of the table as he embraced the chaos? “He was ‘going full Reddit.’”
There’s a lot more in the full review, so check it out. And then, if you haven’t yet, back One Billion Users now before it’s too late!
