Support improved decision-making with a new wargaming tool

The solution

The game offers a quick and intuitive setup, supported by carefully produced documentation and materials. These resources ensure that gameplay mechanics are transparent, open to scrutiny, and easily adaptable. Contested has undergone multiple iterations of playtesting with both wargamers and non-experts, refining its mechanics and enhancing its accessibility. For example:

• Personal objectives help to provide directions for players at the start of the game.
• Multiple scenarios that can be played with a variable number of players.
• Each player has different starting conditions and ability to generate, deploy, employ and draw down forces.
• Conflict can occur within the game but will play a larger part in some scenarios than others.
• A range of potential impacts of each action and chances of success are pre-determined and included in an ‘adjudication outcomes’ booklet. Each action contains guideline text to describe the outcome. More experienced adjudicators can elaborate on this if they wish.

Key benefits

• Combining engaging gameplay with robust educational value, this political strategy game is easy to learn, transparent in its mechanics, and widely recognised for its quality.
• Developed with carefully produced documentation and materials that make the game easy to play while also ensuring mechanics are transparent, open to scrutiny, and easy to change.
• A fun political strategy multi-player game with a high educational content.
• Game setup is quick and intuitive.
• Develops players’ understanding of economic and political strategy tools.
• Has been featured on BBC News within a coverage of a wargaming event in which it was used and featured in a People Make Games YouTube documentary (~430k YouTube views).
• Has been play tested over multiple iterations with wargamers and non-experts.