Mechanics 2: Cooperative Competition

Seven Minutes is partially a team game, and partially not. Part of the reason I landed on the Cold War theme was this concept of players having to make an active choice of whether to support their team, betray them, play both sides, etc.

The 8 player nations are split into Capitalists and Communists, but at the end of the game, there is only one winner. Thus, players may at times hinder the goals of their allies in order to secure the high score. Alternately, in test games, many players so far sacrifice their supremacy in order to make sure their team wins. They seem to see 2nd or 3rd place as a worthy consolation prize. The alternative is their score being 0.

The game will either end when one team outnumbers the other 2-to-1, or (more likely) one player on the leading team has doubled the controlled territories they started with. Side note: This second win condition allows for two design advantages - quick 'checkmate' endings, and incorporated handicaps (smaller country, smaller goal).

The starting territories are shown here:

Note that this is not a completely accurate setup for any date in real history. The intention is to replicate the spirit of the era in simple mechanics, while also creating a balanced game where smaller players have a chance to prosper.

Certain actions players can take may favourably or adversely affect their teammates. This means you can (intentionally or accidentally) sabotage someone's plans while furthering your own.

Later in the development process, there was introduced a ninth option: a 'Non-Aligned' player. When there are an odd number of players, one player belongs to neither bloc. They have multiple choices as to their starting boundaries (Scandinavia, Mexico, Iran, or Brazil). This went over well so far, but merits further testing.