Crisis in Korea

It's actually 2 micro games about possible nuclear assets in the Korean Peninsula. We look at the question of what mutual failure looks like in these games. 

From the Designer:

KTO Crisis also seeks to familiarize players with the utility and limitations of wargames. Wargames must scope their focus and abstract reality into simplified models. Wargames excel in highlighting the dynamic interaction between opposing minds, each adapting to one another’s actions. Thus, the result is less important than the process of acting, reacting, and adapting against an active opponent. Wargames do not predict the future, but help players understand complex issues.

Loose Nukes is a micro-wargame that attempts to simulate the daunting challenges of tracking and securing nuclear assets scattered across the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The wargame scenario proposes an internal collapse of the DPRK regime, settingoff a civil conflict among rival DPRK factions. This leaves the country’s nuclear arsenal exposed and vulnerable, forcing the United States-Republic of Korea (US-ROK) alliance and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to intervene. The game assumes both the US-ROK alliance and thePRC will attempt to avoid escalation, fearing the dire consequences of direct military conflict against each other. Nevertheless, despitesharing the common goal of securing DPRK nuclear assets, both the US-ROK alliance and the PRC are competing in the race to secure the most sites. The assumption being that the country with the most nuclear facilities and materials under their control will inevitably benefit from an enhanced position of influence over the Korean Peninsula after the turmoil ends. At the same time, the DPRK faction, represented by a non-player character, represents the risk of nuclear escalation as it aims to secure its own control over the fractured regime. Against this backdrop, we have designed this game to reflect the precarious tension between cooperation and competition –where players need to work against the clock while keeping the competitors (including the DPRK factions) in check.