Living in Pakistan, national politics is something you can never escape from. You’re on the road and you see billboards of political parties at every corner. At the office, politics is the only thing your colleagues talk about despite work. Same is the case in school. Both students and teachers are always looking for an excuse to shift the discussion towards politics.

Considering how obsessed we are with politics  it isn’t surprising that someone has made a role playing game on Pakistani politics

When I heard about this game initially, I was a bit skeptical. I was like “c’mon man, a role playing game? Eww, don’t we have enough politics already?”

The game is called ‘Paltering Politicians’ and it does sound pretty interesting

So basically it’s a board game of sorts. You play as a politician on an ultimate quest of power. Along the way you meet various obstacles such as contesting elections.

The player can take two routes. There is the corrupt way wherein you can rig elections. But the player has to be really careful.

And there’s this lie detector to catch your lies, as a politician

The lie detector may catch you and give you a nasty shock.

Yeah this game isn’t kidding around. I’ts a battle of wits with too much at stake.

The game is just as entertaining as the Pakistani politics

In order to win the game you either become the much needed savoir. Or became the reason for the country’s demise. Additionally the game uses references from actual incidents such as forging documents in Calibri.

This game was designed by Nashra Balagamwala

She is a Pakistani experiential designer who is currently based in New York. According to her official website she turns controversial issues relating to South Asia into fun games. She studied game design at Rhode Island School of Design.

Nashra has also worked with companies such as Hasbro the company that developed games such as Monopoly and Jenga. Describing herself as a lighthearted person her goal in life is to always try to make everything humorous.

Nashra was inspired to create this game after observing the political landscape in Pakistan

“For a while now, all the horrible things that Pakistani politicians do have been bothering me. It’s baffling to see how they can do all the crap they do, and still get elected, granted, a lot of it happens because of rigging the elections, so I also made that a part of the game” she said about her project.

Aside from Paltering Politicians, Nashra has designed other games, independently as well. One of them is called Crit Happens which is basically about surviving art school.