Politiko

The Game

The latest version of Politiko is version 3.0, Peninsula Edition. This is a simple card game about Malaysian politics. It pokes fun at local political parties. It is not meant to be taken seriously. In fact it is rather politically incorrect. Don't play this with people who are taking politics too seriously. In this game you roleplay as political parties (all of them will sound very familiar). Your goal is to be first to gain enough voters to win the election. Parties may form coalitions. If you do that, the coalition has a higher requirement to win. 

The leftmost card here is a party card, as in political party. Every party is limited to being able to gain only specific types of voters. This one here can only gain Malay voters. There are Malay voters, Chinese voters, Indian voters, and Others. Voters are also categorised by their political stance - conservative, moderate or liberal. Every party has a unique power which can be used once per turn. This party above may swap its hand of cards with another party. 

A player turn is simple. You draw two cards, and you play two cards. You may also use your party's unique power. Many cards have two halves. When you play a card, you may use either half. To gain a voter for your party, you simply play before you a voter card which fits your party. So it's a matter of whether you draw the right voter type. Other than voter cards, you have scheme cards. These have various abilities, mostly hurting others, some helping yourself. The content of the cards is all related to Malaysian politics (up to the 2022 general elections). You have vernacular schools, petrol subsidies, blaming the Jews, members of parliament switching parties, royal interventions and so on. 

The unique powers of the parties in the game are all related to the real-life parties the designers are hinting at. One particular Indian political party gets to draw a card whenever the large Malay party plays a scheme card. That means this Indian party always benefits from this Malay party by sticking around. Sounds familiar, yes? 

The Play

The game is a race to get the required number of voters. Coincidentally in the game I played, all four players had race-based parties. Not that this is surprising in Malaysian politics. The game is about attacking one another while trying to make progress. Leading players are regularly ganged up upon by others. You will lose voters. It is a struggle between making progress while being pulled back by your opponents. There isn't much strategy. You just make the best out of the cards you draw, sometimes waiting for the most effective moment to play a certain card. You may beg, negotiate, threaten and divert attention. There is real politicking among the players since it is a free-for-all melee. One particular player was unlucky because he was the India party. It was difficult for him to get voters because there were fewer Indian voter cards in the deck. Perhaps Indian parties need to form coalitions with other parties to have a better chance of winning, just like in real Malaysian politics. 

There is a hand limit of 4 cards.

You even have sedition charges in the game! 

 

The Thoughts

Politiko is a simple game made for non-gamers. You'll get the humour only if you are Malaysian or have some familiarity with Malaysian politics. The game has plenty of player interaction, because you are going to attack one another all the time. It's a game with a lot of take-that.