Welcome to the Disaster Dynamics Game tutorial!
Disaster Dynamics is a computer game for four players, played over the Internet. During the tutorial, however, you wikll be playing a special one-player mode that does not require Internet access.
Disaster Dynamics is a planning game. Each player is assigned a role representing the interests of a particular set of citizens in a small city; each turn represents a particular time in the city's history. During a turn, the players collectively decide which proposals to pass in order to improve their city.
The basic gameplay consists of understanding the current situation and options available, submitting proposals for consideration by other players, negotiating with other players to find acceptable compromises, and resolving the proposals by vote. The turn ends when all the proposals have been voted on, or when there isn't enough budget remaining to afford any more proposals.
The game display is divided into two major parts:
terrain, and proposals.
which you will use to get information and take actions. To bring a tab to the front, click on it.
The map shows an bird's-eye view of the city. For the Hurricane Landfall scenario, the city is located on a small barrier island somewhere along the Gulf Coast. Blue represents water, while greens and browns are land. The terrain types are also indicated in the "Labels" layer. The map is divided up into hexagons. The hexes are one half-mile along each edge.
There are a number of different pieces of imformation that can be displayed on the map. The legend on the far left edge controls which layers are visible. To show or hide a layer, click the checkbox next to its name in the legend.
(purple)
that are not associated with geographic areas are represented as icons at the bottom of the map.
Note that the house-shaped icons displayed on the map represent multiple buildings, not individual structures. For example, if half of the icons in a cell are blue, it means that roughly half of the total acreage of the cell is being utilized by shops, shopping centers, and other commercial buildings. Each house icon represents approximately 5% of the cell's area.
The Proposal tab is used to view and manipulate proposals. It has three areas: a row of buttons to interact with proposals, a list of candidate proposals, and a "detail area" displaying the currently selected proposal.
There are two types of proposals in Disaster Dynamics. Possible Proposals are all of the options theoretically available for modifying the city this turn. The list of possible propsoals will change from turn to turn as the situation changes. Played Proposals are those that have been configured and submitted for consideration by a player. A proposal must be played before you can vote on (and enact) it. The played proposals are color-coded according to who played them.
You select a proposal by clicking its title. Details about the selected proposal are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Each proposal has various options, which affect the proposal's cost and effects.
To play a proposal, click the "Propose" button (for a new proposal), or the "Amend" button (to modify a proposal that's already been playwed). You can withdraw a proposal that you played by clicking the "Retract" button.
After you click Propose or Amend, you can edit the proposal. Choose which options you want the proposal to have by clicking on the associated checkboxes and radio buttons. You can also get more information about the proposal by clicking on the question mark button next to the title.
When you have configured the proposal to your satisfaction, click "OK" to play it. Note that you can only play one version of a particular proposal; if you play the same proposal with different options, it will replace the version you played earlier. Note also that if you try to play a proposal that is configured identically to a proposal that has already been played, it will be rejected.
Played proposals appear in the list at the top of the screen. You can indicate your opinion of a proposal by clicking on it, then clicking on the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" button to show support or disapproval, respectively. If you might go either way, you can click on the "double arrow" button and a dialog will prompt you to specify more details. The opinion buttons are a quick and easy way to indicate to the other players how you feel about a proposal. You can indicate your opinion whenever you want, and can change your opinion at any time.
The "vote" button is used to call for a vote on the selected proposal. The voting process is explained below.
The Info tab displays information about the current state of the game.
At the top, the names of the players, their roles, and how many votes they have left are displayed to the left. To the right, the budget remaining for this turn is is displayed.
Below this information are a set of bars showing various "appeal metrics"; these indicate how attractive the city is to each of the roles. Not Implemented Yet: There are also two bars showing the ecological health of the city and its surroundings, and the vulnerability of the city to hurricane-related hazards.
A transcript of the actions that have taken place (proposals played and enacted, for example) appears at the bottom of the window. Explanatory messages from the system (e.g., proposals have been removed from the list because there is no longer enough budget to pass them) are also displayed here. This is a good place to look if something happened that you don't understand.
The Chat tab provides a textual chat for interacting with the other players. Type your message in the box at the bottom and press the Enter/Return key to send that message to the other players. The messages from you and the other players will appear in the top window. Chat is a way to negotiate with other players and discuss various alternatives.
The Vote tab is only enabled when voting on a current proposal is taking place. To understand voting, you must understand the "life cycle" of proposals in the game.
will turn red. At least one other player must agree that this would be a good time to vote on a proposal.
asked to rank the proposals from your most favorite to your least favorite. All of the input from the players is collected and one candidate is chosen for voting.
votes, or all players press the "Done" button indicating that they are happy with their choices.
complete and players continue to the next proposal.
The vote tab is used for three purposes. If someone wants to begin the voting phase, they click on a played proposal and click the vote button. The vote tab (for the other players) will turn red. Click on the vote tab and click "Yes" if you want to vote now, otherwise click No.
It is important to remember that "agreeing to vote" is not the same thing as "agreeing to enact." This is only indicating that you want to vote on something, not that you support it. You may, for example, agree to vote on something and then vote against it.
If there are several versions of a proposal, rank the proposals from your most favorite to your least favorite. The most popular version of a proposal will be the one on which you vote.
When voting begins, you will see a window similar to this:
The proposal under consideration is displayed at the top. Your voting controls are in the center, and the information about the other players and their votes remaining are given at the bottom.
Each player has a fixed number of votes for the entire turn. Each player gets one "free" vote for each proposal, and the rest come from the pool for the whole turn.
To be enacted, a proposal must have at least one more "For" vote than "Against" votes. A tie vote will cause a proposal to fail. To vote for a proposal, click the "thumbs up" button, and to vote against click the "thumbs down" button. The current status of whether a proposal will pass or fail is displayed in the Tally.
When voting is complete, you will briefly see the results of the vote and then the vote tab will be disabled. Click on the Info panel to see detailed voting results.
The Help tab displays the in-game help. When you click on the help button (question mark) for a proposal, the help tab will be activated.
The Help window acts like a simple Web browser. Underlined links lead to additional help pages. Click the left and right buttons to go back and forth in the help, or click the "Home" button to go back to the help table of contents.
