Trail to the White House (2009)

Goal: To be elected President of the United States. You and your opponent will engage in a series of "debates" (game rounds) over seven Issues. Each player will be attempting to gather the most support for her platform. The winner of each Issue will garner votes from the various Regions. Plan your campaign, manage your resources carefully, and win!

Designer's Notes

This game was created for Cate108's Themed Rummy Contest. I had been thinking about different "conflicts" which I could model, and a political race came readily to mind following the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. The idea of competing over "issues" has been done successfully in Die Macher. I used that concept as the foundation for this game: players would be candidates, competing over a different issue each round.

The next step was to come up with a point system. The U.S. Presidential race again provided a good solution: the Electoral College. The challenge was distilling that model down to something manageable. There are 538 electors in the College; keeping score on that scale wasn't going to be very friendly. By grouping states into Regions and normalizing the numbers, I was able to arrive at a base number of 107 -- equal to the number of cards, not including the scoring key. This decision meant that the cards could be used as "votes" at the end of the game to determine a winner. I like the idea of cards having multiple uses: it has been an effective mechanism in both San Juan and in Race for the Galaxy.

I'm proud of the end result. I believe that it is an easy game to learn, that offers some strategic considerations as well. The theme should be readily accessible to all. I hope you enjoy it!