Chris Crawford on Game Design

Corporate Politics

Here's a game I've wanted to do for a long time. Corporate politics can be intense and hard-fought. The player starts as a manager at a large corporation with the goal of promotion to the top. The first question to ask about the design, as you already know, is “What are the verbs?” and here is precisely where the toughest problems in the game arise. Political behavior in a corporation is closely tied to the specifics of business activity. You can't design a game with a generic, one-size-fits-all “stab in the back” verb. The specifics of the stab in the back are essential to making it understandable.

The solution to this problem is to build an elaborate business story that unfolds in a linear and predictable fashion. This is ...