Many thanks to the playtesters! In particular, thanks to the participants in the very first playtest at a game design conference at Central Michigan University in 2012.
Subsequent thanks go to Emily Hess of Ashland University, Courtney Smith from Cabrini College, and Betsy Powers and Amy Brown Curry of Lone Star College. They all bravely tried out early, rough versions of the game. We appreciate their willingness to step boldly into the breach, and their feedback on subsequent iterations of the game. They all kept using the game after these early trials. We deeply appreciate these votes of confidence in a game that included unorthodox structural elements like the Big Three and the cavalcade of interlocking issues.
As the game continued to develop, Paul Fessler’s playtests at Dordt College were particularly helpful. His questions and commentary led to the clarification of a number of procedural details and the sharpening of the first session. Betsy Powers, Todd Timmons, and Ted Gellar-Goad all read the manuscript for the editorial board of the Reacting Consortium before the game advanced. Their observations and those of their students were quite valuable.
The playtest at a 2017 conference at Barnard College illuminated a number of issues. Dorothea Herreiner and Paul Droubie were particularly generous with their feedback. Subsequent field-testing by Ben Alpers, Jonathan Sarris, Denise Spivey, John Carter McKnight, Montgomery Wolf, Kori Thompson, Joseph Roberts, Phil Garland, Charles Martindell, Mark Johnson, Chris Grant, Dana Ables Morales, Jason Locke, Zac Smith, Terry Breese, and Jennifer Mueller further refined the design.
Three readers for the second round of reviews by the editorial board in 2018, Jae Basilière, John M. Parrish, and Caleb Richardson, were especially helpful in strengthening the focus on ideology and improving advice to Gamemasters about how to structure the game.
Thanks also to Jace Weaver and the rest of the Reacting Consortium’s board for approving the game for publication, and to Erin Davis and the other good people at Westchester Publishing Services for putting the manuscript into fighting trim.
Finally, thanks to Paul Wright of Cabrini College. He has served as an expert sounding board throughout the entire process of developing this game, from conception to the final edit.