Peace by Piece
Peace by Piece a simulation game of war, peace and everything in between – is a result of thorough academic research in fields of security studies, political science, anthropology, economics and sociology.
The game simulates conflicts in Mali – a state considered one of the hardest to stabilize because of the complexity and multilevel character of affinities between the factions. It combines the complex characteristics of the groups involved in fights in northern Mali determined through their religion, identities, history and traditions with their mixed motivations, resources, power and leanings.
The game reflects the interests of six parties, pushes them to fight, choose alliances, cooperate and betray just as in real life. It also provides a set of tools for the international forces to act and try to resolve the conflict and build peace and state.
In every round, there is a new possibility of a potentially profitable challenge presented to the players, which is a way of testing a combination of solutions that can be offered to the parties in real life. Feedback from the game, next to being enthusiastic, provides a broad raw material for an academic study.
Questions asked the players include:
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Is peace in Mali possible?
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How to reconcile fighting factions?
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Are general elections feasible and welcome?
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Will a constitution stabilize the country?
Nothing is predefined - a sandbox construction of the game leaves an open end with no predefined results and makes the game useful to university students, academics keen to verify their hypotheses as well as practitioners anxious to test their plans before deployment.
The game has been created in cooperation with University of Warsaw.
Peace by Piece won 2019 Grand Prix Serious Game Design Competition held by International Simulation & Gaming Association (ISAGA).
Duration: 4 - 8h
Number of players: 6 - 30
Experts: dr hab. Agata Dziewulska, dr Anna Ostrowska
Game design: Igor Widawski
Graphic design: Adam Banaszek