🃏 I’ve made a Table Top Role Playing Card Game, “Viral Empire”.
🤡 Each player takes on the role of a social media founder, competing to build their platforms, attract users, and grow revenue. Players must balance their growth with ethics to evade attacks from rival founders and chaos in the social media ecosystem. It’s a satire of startup culture and the content economy – think Succession meets Black Mirror meets Monopoly Deal.
I’m testing it right now (April 2026)
I’ll be using it through May and June in workshops in London, Berlin and Nairobi. Our Bangalore workshop was postponed but will hopefully happen later in the year.
Asides from being hella fun to play, I’ve built the game as a research methodology. I’m hoping that becoming a founder and experiencing the drama and volatility of the social media ecosystem will open up conversations with players about the state of the digital sphere. My goal is to help players envisage alternative digital realities.
Much more to come.