Back Our Kickstarter For One Billion Users, The Social Media Card Game

Techdirt

from the platform-wars dept

This week, we launched the crowdfunding campaign for our new card game, One Billion Users, where players compete to build the biggest and best social media network. We’ve put a lot of work into designing a fun, fast-paced game and we need your help to produce it — so if you want to try your hand at running a social network, back our Kickstarter and secure your copy of the game.

Many of you probably remember our first Kickstarted card game, CIA: Collect It All, which was based on a real CIA training game created by the government and obtained via a FOIA request. This time, we’ve drawn inspiration from a different public domain source: the 1906 card game Touring, which in turn inspired the 1950s hit Mille Bornes. But One Billion Users goes well beyond those games, with lots of new mechanics that add new layers of strategy and increased replayability.

In One Billion Users, players compete to get as many people as possible onto their platforms. That means drawing in communities of regular users while navigating various obstacles, but it also means competing to attract influencers with huge followings. What’s more, not all users are created equal: they bring with them varying levels of toxicity that can hamper your growth and hurt your final score.

On top of that, the game also lets you try on the shoes of the big social networks you know and love (or hate). Will you play as TapTap, which benefits from its highly effective algorithm but is a prime target for political moral panics? Maybe you’ll play as HireMe, which aims to maintain a professional tone, or as Friendlink, which gets a head start from being around for so long but isn’t exactly considered cool by today’s influencers. And then, of course, there’s a certain Hellsite that has recently undergone some big changes…

Throughout the game, you’ll be trying to slow the growth of your rivals by hitting them with various blockers — maybe they run out of money, or their servers get overloaded, or the toxic culture of their platform starts repelling potential new users. And of course you’ll have to deal with these blockers yourself — seeking out new advertisers (if your platform isn’t too toxic), rolling out server upgrades, and putting the mods to work.

One Billion Users contains over 120 cards and is designed for 2-4 players, with games taking about 30 minutes. We’re very excited to get this game into people’s hands, but that’s only going to happen if we hit our crowdfunding goal. We don’t plan to produce and sell this game after the initial Kickstarter run, so if you want to get a copy, backing our campaign is your only chance! We’ll have more teasers and more details about gameplay to show you over the next couple weeks, but for now please check the game out on Kickstarter and secure your copy before it’s too late.

Filed Under: one billion users