Kleptocrat: How to Hide Dirty Money
Product Design and Project LeadiOS app, 2016-17, Mintz Group in conjunction with BumbleBear Games
Early Prototypes
Our initial concepts focused on conveying the true-to-life patterns and stories that surfaced in our research. We broke down all of the stories into “acts” and created a small database of strategies, actions, and downfalls. One of our first prototypes was an actual card game that we designed and printed 20 decks of 84 cards each that we play-tested at our company conference in November 2014. The feedback from that playtest revealed that players were reluctant to read so much text, and that we had to introduce more gradation into the scoring system.
Game Design
After reviewing feedback from our first prototypes, we brought in BumbleBear Games led by Josh DeBonis to brainstorm and to help design and develop the game. We synthesized some features from our earlier prototypes, such as keeping the idea of a card-based game but modifying the map to more of a positional gridded board on which the cards would be placed. The game mechanics emerged out of the patterns and stories, and indicators of risk were introduced, combined with an element of chance.
The Mobile App
After months of extensive play-testing and focus groups, Kleptocrat launched on the Apple App Store as a free download in September 2017. As of Oct 2024, it has been downloaded over 10,400 times with an average rating of 4.8 stars.
Retrospective
In January 2018, we held a panel discussion at The New School called “Gaming the Financial System” in which Jim Mintz, Josh DeBonis, and I talked about the development of Kleptocrat, the challenges we encountered during the design and testing process, and how we solved these problems to launch the game.
Reception
Kleptocrat won the IndieCade Jury Prix Award in 2018.
It was also featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, BoingBoing, and BuzzFeed.