Business controls everything.
The business world affects all of us, but it can be kind of hard to see what happens behind the scenes of it all. Corporate Times aims to help players understand all of the intricacies about how politicians and the media affect corporate business.
Corporate Times is a is a financially themed strategic game for 2-5 players. The game uses both worker placement and resource management mechanics to simulate the business world. As the head of their corporations, players must manipulate the economy, politics, and the media to rise to the top. Over the course of the game, players will earn influence points, and the first to twenty wins the game.
We spoke to creator Yair Bahat about Corporate Times to learn about the process of making the game, as well as some of the challenges involved. Yair, interested in politics and the economy, wanted to make a game that simplified the experience and gave players a unique perspective. Of course, the nature of this theme required quite a bit of research. Then, Bahat needed to figure out how to make the theme work as a game. “The idea originated through many gaming sessions. “After the initial idea of the game was established, it took us several months of playtesting to come with the final design for the board game in which players try to take over the economy,” says Bahat. “Of course in the process of designing the game a lot of rules were refined.”
The board went through eight designs before Bahat settled on what would be Corporate Times. The cards were revised five times before the design was finalized. “For a long time, I didn’t like the design of the cards. One night I couldn’t sleep and thought on a new game mechanic – make the cards presented on board and actually change the board status. I find it one of the best ideas in the game. I love that the board gets ‘changed’ during the game.” Overall, it took about a year to get everything finalized.
Corporate Times is heavily inspired by games like Five Tribes and Settlers of Catan. “I wanted all players to know at all time how many points other players have. In some games, Like Five Tribes, that use tokens or points, you don’t really know who is in the lead until the end. That’s why our board has a visible score track,” says Bahat. While he enjoys Catan, Bahat didn’t want dice to add luck as a factor, so he removed that.
Corporate Times found itself funded on Kickstarter within four hours. “I knew that we had a lot of backers that expected the game, and with the help of a few more we managed to fund the game very quickly,” reflects Bahat. With a few days left in the campaign, Bahat is focused on stretch goals. “We always think about how we can improve the game with more stretch goals. We’ll add more during the campaign. We asked our backers and supporters what their preferences for the stretch goals are, and will soon update them.” When the campaign is over, Bahat plans on working on his next game, which will have a completely different theme.
You can check out Corporate Times and secure a copy of the game for $28 here.
