New Year, New Hosting Provider

Apologies to those who experienced problems with The Redistricting Game in Jan 2015. We had technical problems with the hosting provider so I moved it to a new provider. It is back online and I do not anticipate future technical problems. I can be reached at christopherswain (at) yahoo (dot) com if you have technical issues. Thank you! Chris

Bug in the Chrome Browser

I've heard from users that the game is not playing properly in the Chrome browser.

Until we put in a fix Chrome users you can click the following links to load the Redistricting Game missions in Chrome.

Mission 1
Basic - Advanced

Mission 2
Basic - Advanced

Mission 3
Basic - Advanced

Mission 4
Basic – Advanced

Mission 5
Basic – Advanced

Gerrymandering - The Movie (featuring the game!)

The game and I am featured in the movie Gerrymandering. You can watch the movie in it's entirety right here.

New Article about the game

http://virginiaconservative.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/the-redistricting-game/

Good stuff.

Chicago Tribune says nice things about the game today...

See the full article here

Good news and bad news...

The website was down the other day. That's the bad news.

We got the email below from Michael Sturino that day which I like because it says a lot about how people are using the game. The technical problem was fixed that same day.

Here's the note from Michael (posted with his permission):

My name is Michael Sturino and I teach collegel level government and politics in central New Jersey. One of my best lessons involves my students taking part in the Redistricting Game in which you created. I used the game just last night to test for any last minute bugs and all went well. However, the redistrictinggame.org website has been down all day and I was curious to see if you had any idea of if and when the site would be back on-line. Every year I hype up the interactive nature of the game and my students usually get extremely pumped to take part in the learning experience of actually being state legislators going through the gerrymandering process. I truly appreciate any information or assistance you could provide with this situation.

Remember Krist Novoselic from the band Nirvana?

I had a great conversation with Krist Novoselic, formerly of the band Nirvana, now chair of FairVote.org, this morning. FairVote is the leading election reform group and a friend of The Redistricting Game. Krist wrote a great blog post here and discusses the game.

The Redistricting Game in higher ed

We have learned that The Redistricting Game has been used for assignments in political science courses at University of Colorado, Yale, UC San Diego, and Stanford. Very pleased to hear this.

Great article about The Redistricting Game on DML Central

This article is mostly about Dr. Kareem Crayton who was our amazing political science research advisor on The Redistricting Game. Kareem provided the expertise on redistricting that we, as game designers, needed to make the game accurate. Full article here.

More press for The Redistricting Game

Another article that cite the game

Featured in Philadelphia Daily News

Another article came out recently which cites The Redistricting Game as a resource to those interested in understanding redistricting reform.

Redistricting Game chose for OnlineColleges.net 50 Great list

OnlineColleges.net featured The Redistricting Game in their list of "50 Great Sites for Serious, Educational Games". The list is very well curated as a who's who of the top serious games. Honored to be included!

The Redistricting Game featured in new documentary film

I was interviewed several times for this documentary called Gerrymandering. The director, Jeff Reichert, is a great guy. Check out his film here: http://www.gerrymanderingmovie.com/

Featured on the Americans for Redistricting Reform website

The game is integrated into the top banner of the website for Americans for Redistricting Reform.

This group seems to have good momentum and partnerships with a big group of quality, like-minded organizations.

Check it out.

The Redistricting Game mentioned in Wash Post again...

Mike Musgrove, who wrote a nice piece in the Washington Post about The Redistricting Game last year (full article here), just wrote another article about games for change - and in particular a new game effort that includes participation by former U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor called "Our Courts". Full article here.

California is branded among a 'Dirty Dozen' on gerrymandering

The LA Times ran a piece entitled "California is branded among a 'Dirty Dozen' on gerrymandering" on June 19. Full article here.

Voting's Neglected Scandal - gerrymandering column in Wash Post...

David Broder published this excellent critique of the current redistricting laws in America in his column in the Washington Post.

He talks about something not often mentioned as a problem with the current system - that it leads to voter suppression.

Full article here.

The Redistricting Game being used in PA lobbying effort

The president of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania contacted me. She asked for a copy of the opening animation from The Redistricting Game so she can show it during a press conference about redistricting reform on April 9.

She already features our game prominently on her website which I am pleased to see.

She is lobbying to get legislation passed in June that will reform redistricting in PA for the next round of redistricting after the 2010 census.

Go Pennsylvania!

UPDATE: The game was presented by LWVPA and was mentioned in the the Scranton PA paper here

Written up in The Escapist and on Gamasutra.com

Gamasutra did a recap of the SXSW panel I was on here. Also Evan Van Zelfden did a nice piece for The Escapist here.

Presented at SXSW - podcast available

I was on a panel yesterday about "Games for Change" yesterday at the SXSW conference and presented The Redistricting Game. Read about the panel here.

Listen to the podcast here.

Other panelists included: Suzanne Seggerman from Games for Change, Ben Stokes from the MacArthur Foundation, Eric Zimmerman from gamelab, and Mary Flanagan from Tiltfactor Lab at Hunter College. It was a good time and we had a lunch of bizarre tacos afterward at a place called Torchy's Taco's. Highly recommended if you are in Austin. Austin really is a breath of fresh air.