The Points of Order [in-development]

created by Milton Lim

Project description:

The Points of Order is a text-based democracy simulator and video game for three or more players that interrogates the fragile boundary between cooperative and competitive mental frameworks. Set against the contemporary rise in far-right ideologies and systemic disillusionment with North American governance, the project functions as both a social gathering and an inquiry into the pressure of distributed decision-making architectures.

Drawing from research into "Theatres of Calculation", the game investigates how anonymous voting structures—common in both direct and delegative democracies—alter the perception of agency. By abstracting votes into numerical points, The Points of Order articulates the "gamification of responsibility," questioning whether the desire for individual victory inherently overrides collective outcomes.

A central tension in this work is the "Shadow of the Future": the psychological influence of anticipated interactions on present-moment choices. Players must navigate asymmetrical access to information, deciding how to delegate their agency or consolidate power to form a majority. This research creation project explores when and how digital governance more closely resembles either a shared social contract or a zero-sum game, creating the context for players to reconsider how political intervention might manifest within an increasingly algorithmic and gamified society.

This project is in early development.