The two cases I choose for research is 11 bit studios’ Froskpunk and Firaxis Games’ Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Reasons for the choice and each games’ attributes will be listed below.

Frostpunk(11 bit studios, 2018)

Attributes:

• Post-apocalypse survival game
• Community and construction simulation
• Resource management
• Policy making

In the world of a post-apocalypse freezing surroundings, player have to help construct both the city and community. As a governor and a god to the city, players can choose to sacrifice the welfare of the citizens and children in return of higher productivity. Or players can care more about their people but it might lead to the death of all. The point that I admire the most in Frostpunk is its creditability of decision outcomes. Player can force workers to work overtime and ignore their need for medical help. But in that situation, player must become a full dictator to avoid being overturned.

During the research, I will focus on a policy which player will interact with at the very beginning – child labor policy. It has two different route and two more branches that follows. Learning from child labor situation in reality and its origin and outcome, we can witness how 11 bit studios refer to child labor progression and policy intervention to develop its creditability.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI (Firaxis Games, 2015)

Attributes:

• Turn-based strategy game
• Lead a historic civilization to ruin all enemies
• Engage with past and present technological advances, social system and heritage of history
• Policy card system simplified historical events and policies.

Civilization series, often simply referred as Civ, is a video game series that need no introduction. As the newest iteration, Civ6 added a brand new policy card system, which allow players to choose their own developing path. Due to the size of its content, we will focus only on this system.

Policy card system simplified many historical events, represent the new incarnation of social policies. All cards are divided into four types: Military, Economic, Diplomatic and Wildcard. Instead of extracting from one policy in Frostpunk, Civ6 choose to simplified all the policies into one or two clear effect that will change the game immediately. Though some policies like “Five-Year Plan”, which originated from the Soviet Union’s Five-Year Plan, is too much simplified as 100% bonuses on 2 different zones, the system are still have great readability and good for decision making. This bring up another route of developing a decision making system in video games. Subtracting extra description and effect, let only its most distinct attribute shine.