CHICAGO, JULY 11, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ANNOUNCING “CHICAGO ‘68”
Design by Yoni Goldstein, art by John Biggs, development by Joe Dewhurst & Ronen Goldstein
A new board game about revolutionary spectacle & civil disorder at the Democratic National Convention riots of 1968.
In CHICAGO ‘68, players take the roles of either the Establishment or the Demonstrators in this fast-paced game of street clashes, tear gas, and political spectacle.
The game tells the story of the “Yippies”, a young ragtag band of revolutionaries and political pranksters, and their allies in the antiwar movement, who took to the streets during the election year of 1968. They faced a powerful adversary: the Chicago Police Department, the Army National Guard, and the Windy City’s notorious political “machine” – the smoke filled back rooms of party bosses and city administrators.
Players will find CHICAGO ‘68 to be intuitive, thematic, and tactically rich. It combines a “units on the map” style of asymmetrical conflict simulation with area control, tableau activation, and hand building mechanics.
Each side plays from two unique hands consisting of leadership and rank-and-file actions. These include deploying police platoons and conducting mass arrests, leading marches and giving speeches, and working the delegates on the convention floor. The Establishment must maintain law and order in the eyes of the American Public (represented in-game as “Exposure” points) while also ensuring that their handpicked nominee is voted by the delegates (represented by the delegate track and the cube-pull from the delegate bag). The Establishment player must manage to dominate both of these victory conditions in order to win. The Demonstrators, on the other hand, can win the game by leading in either of the two conditions. They can pivot from street battles to the political arena, making them a reactive and chaotic force to contend with.
The game is built around an open event system that encourages emergent narratives and multiple historical possibilities. These are represented by the “street theater” cards that the Yippie agitators are adding to their tableau: a powerful splay of effects that can trigger once their pieces are positioned at the right time and place. The Mayor can respond with new policies and police tactics; an array of card effects that can radically reshape the game state… but grow progressively more costly as the game unfolds.
CHICAGO ‘68 supports 1-4 players in solo, competitive, cooperative, and team play modes.
Duration: 45 mins per player or 90 mins (solo) + teaching time.