Rent Racket

Rent, lobbying, and property problems. A landlord-satire card game.

GamesPublished prototype

Built with Alex Bailey and Jerry Sun at Kiwijam 2024, Rent Racket turns rent, lobbying, and maintenance into a political satire card game.

We moved from paper prototypes to a physical set over one weekend, complete with printed cards, laser-cut currency, and a fabric board. The rules and print files are available to download. The accompanying story follows the rule changes and the rush to make it real.

Highlights

Political satire through play
Fast paper prototyping
A handmade physical game

Home through a landlord’s eyes

Kiwijam 2024’s theme was Home. Alex Bailey, Jerry Sun, and I turned that into a game about the people collecting rent from it. The core loop joins three things: income from properties, problems that reduce that income, and lobbying to change the policies everyone has to live with.

The satire works through the decisions at the table. Money can buy another property or influence a policy; maintenance and events can upset a comfortable portfolio. We explored New Zealand political references in the cards, then pulled back ideas that were more interested in making a point than making the game work.

Play before polish

We wanted a playable ruleset by Saturday morning, before spending much time on the final cards. That first game exposed the real problem quickly: properties earned too much, issues did not accumulate enough, and the ending was too hard to reach. The TOP Land Tax card was supposed to end the game, but repeated shuffling kept delaying it.

The next ruleset came from playing, including the impromptu decisions we had made around the table. A second game gave us something stronger to work with. Only then did we open Figma and turn the cards into a consistent set. A physical prototype makes that feedback immediate: shuffle, deal, try again.

Making the table readable

The final push combined several kinds of making. We printed ninety cards per set on 240gsm stock, cut them down, and rounded their corners. Alex sewed a bag, Jerry printed containers for the money, and we laser-cut the currency from translucent acrylic.

Playing with the finished cards revealed another interface problem. Different decks, discard piles, and shared policies needed clear places on the table. Jerry designed a board in Inkscape; Alex cut the layout in vinyl and applied it to fabric. The board gave the state of the game a visible structure, rather than relying on everyone to remember where each pile belonged.

A prototype you can play

The published physical prototype includes the rules, printable card files, board artwork, and currency shapes. Play moves through a draw phase and a policy phase. Players deal with property issues, acquire properties, and spend rent to lobby for or against the next policy. Binding deals between players add another layer to the table.

It remains a prototype, with the rough edges that a weekend build and its later playtests revealed. The public files let other people try that version for themselves. The separate Rent Racket Duel inside H&A Play adapts the idea for two players on iPhone; this page documents the original physical game.