PlataPorma – Political Story Telling Game. Free Print-to-Play. Designed by Ronald Villaver. CC Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

Sure about your bets this coming election? What makes your candidates stand above the rest? Use showmanship, quick wits and satirical selling skills to convince the voting public that your team just might, have what it takes to solve our nation’s issues.

You can download the print and play files of the game for free here. https://github.com/rvillaver/PlataPorma

So I’m Ronald Villaver designer of Plataporma. The game itself is not really a new game. I’ve used it a similar play style in a previous game I called Quotes & Verses. Those are storytelling games like the popular Cards Against Humanity, Snake Oil, But Wait there’s More… The basic idea is that one or more players will be the judge for a topic while others try to pitch their cards. There are many Filipino game designers innovating on international games and adding a bit of local flavor. Another political game you might be interested in is Politricks by PJ Lim and RB Ting.

I wanted to make a game that made the players focus on relevant issues while keeping it light and fun. The “voter” for the round plays a Political Issue; the other players try to pitch their candidate pairs to best answer the issue. After everyone has done presenting their candidates, the voter picks their favored pair and awards that player a point. In the end, the player with the most points wins. To play well in PlataPorma, you need to be a bit in-the-know of the current events. Making relevant annotations to your candidate pair adds to delight of your platform pitch. It is not enough, to just play the candidate pair; you have to sell it to your audience and persuade them either by showmanship, facts, or comedy or combination of the three.

Last Monday, I received a call from TVC5 asking if they could feature the game. I am really thankful for the pleasant surprise as I did not advertise or promote the game. It was simply there for my friends and anybody who passes by to enjoy. If you do enjoy this game, feel free to share it to your friends, its really easy to print a copy of your own. Check out my other games as well and see the other games I’m cooking up in the Games for a Purpose page.

Have fun playing the game, and refer to the project page from time to time as I update it whenever I find something engaging to add. New characters, new issues that would keep the game appealing and relevant years to come.

Now watch the TV appearance here: