Engaging with the history of U.S interstate highways.

Challenge

The 1960’s saw an explosion of interstate highway construction through many major cities in the United States. Often, highway construction threatened to tear apart well-established neighborhoods, so residents staged so-called “Highway Revolts” in response. Revolts that were most successful in blocking highway construction relied on coalition-building and other collaborative political tactics. I wanted to design an educational game to engage people in this lesser-known history of highway construction.

Approach

Drawing inspiration from the card game Regicide, I designed a game called Highway Revolt! in which players use their hand of cards to cooperate with each other against a house deck in an attempt to block highway construction through their neighborhoods. Throughout the game, players employ the same political tactics that historical protestors did and have a chance to learn about the motivations of key stakeholders in interstate construction, including state and federal departments, politicians, and lobbyists.

Role

Game Designer
Content Designer

Context

Academic

Timeline

3 weeks
(Fall 2021)

Status

🚀 Shipped

Serious fun

I wanted to design a game that made this important piece of history more accessible to a wider audience. I chose a bold font and icons to visually signal the weight of the topic while pairing them with a more playful colorful palette, aiming to strike a balance between seriousness and fun to spark meaningful engagement with the topic.

Political tactics

Playing cards

Key figures

Keeping score

I tested my card game prototype with a few people during the design process and found that they were having trouble keeping track of the score, so I decided to 3D print neighborhood block boards with small house pieces for players to visualize their points along with a road and car pieces to track the power and attack of the house deck.

Post-game analysis

We hosted a game day, and those who had a chance to play Highway Revolt! enjoyed learning about the history of interstate highway construction. Some commented that it had a learning curve, and based on this feedback, I would improve the clarity of the written rules and my verbal explanation. Most importantly, many players appreciated the cooperative nature of the game that fostered camaraderie rather than division, in the face of systemic issues.