Bitcoin: The Mining Game

Thematic game about Bitcoin mining, in american style. The game can be played in two modes: as a simple party game or as a standard boardgame. Both modes can be played from 2 to 8 players, but for 6 or more players the party game mode is suggested. Players are miners that start to mine Bitcoin at home, by betting energy and selling Bitcoin to get more energy. When played as a party game, the game requires very little room for the game board and just few components: players can sit around the board, or even few meters away, since the main mechanics are just bidding energy to get Bitcoin cards and sellig cards to get energy. A complete game is played in 4 eras, where each era represents one 4 years cycle (Bitcoin's halvings). Players can agree in advance to play just 1, 2 or 3 eras, for a shorter game. The party game and standard game modes shares the same mechanics, the only difference is that when the game is played as party game the Bitcoin cards are used just as victory points, that is: the text printed on the cards is ignored. On the opposite, when played as a standard boardgame, an Action phase is added to end of each game turn. During this Action phase players can play the cards to get benefits, and trigger some special actions like stacking and upgrades. This adds more strategy to the game experience and reduce luck dependances. The standard boardgame leads miners to choose their favourite approach to Bitcoin. Depending by cards and strategy, each player can decide to use Bitcoin just as an economic asset, to improve it as software developer, to mine more Bitcoins improving his rigs, or even act as a human science expert, exploiting the social and psychological aspectes of Bitcoin. These choices are offered by the four types of cards: Economics, Engineering, Human Sciences or Informatics. Specializing in only one approach it's not common, therefore usually each players will build a mixed profile with all these skills. Because investing time it's often better than investing money.