A coup in progress during the playtest of Brazilian Constituent Assembly at the 2025 GDC

by Eduardo Magalhaes

While I teach Political Science, I was exposed to Reacting through my colleague in the history department at Simpson College, Nick Proctor. Intrigued by what I saw, I started using Reacting in my own classes at least 15 years ago. Soon after I started using Reacting, it was clear to me that the history of the 1988 Brazilian Constituent Assembly would make a good Reacting game. It provides several clear decision points regarding Constitutional issues, clear characters with a variety of perspectives, and was something that actually overlapped with my own life. My father was a Brazilian who was forced to leave Brazil after the military coup in 1964 and then returned with our family when the democratization process started.

I began working on the Game about five years ago, after Nick encouraged me to submit it to the Big List of Reacting Games. In 2022 a colleague in my department was teaching a Comparative Constitutions class for the first time, so I volunteered to let her use the Constituent Assembly game….even though it was barely a concept at the time. This self-imposed deadline forced me to actually develop some game logistics and character background. At around the same time, someone reached out to me from Jacksonville University for permission to use the game in his History of Brazil class. Again, I was able to add some additional clarity since I was essentially forced to!

That first version of the game was astonishingly thin. I had accessed the template for Gamebooks, so I tried to minimally follow that model. I had a brief overview of the game, an extensive timeline, but essentially no narrative whatsoever! In fact, the main element of that initial Gamebook was the basic framework of the game – the resolutions to be debated, the actors participating, assignments, and the schedule for the game. I did have some minimal descriptions of parties (so that students would at least have some sense of what their roles were about) and some vocabulary terms. There was only one core text, a few sample speeches, and a link to the Spanish constitution. While the game was usable, it was extremely bare bones at this point.

However, over the next year I was able to add much more detail to the logistics of the game, because to be honest, that was the part I was most excited about. I added more background information and had much more detailed role sheets – adding in detailed victory objectives. By 2023 I was far enough along that I was able to use a sabbatical leave to really dive into developing the game. Thanks to translation work done by my brother, I was able to dramatically improve the details – adding significant new elements and much more detail in the Role Sheets. This put me in a position to submit my game to the Game Design Conference this past summer, where I received even more feedback and guidance on improving the game. One of the other things I learned at the GDC was that the Reacting Editorial Board would be accepting submissions for consideration to be moved to Level 3 in mid-September.

So, when the semester started, I embarked on a feverish, two-week sprint to get the game as fully fleshed out as I could so that it would be ready to submit. It was the most intense writing experience I’ve had since the time I wrote half my dissertation in the two weeks before the deadline to submit it! And I loved every second of it.

When I first started this project, what I was most concerned about was that my Gamebook, Instructor’s Manual, and Role Sheets were not exactly in line with the template provided by Reacting. Ok, they were a long way from being in compliance with that template. So, the first thing I did was to create the table of contents required for the Gamebook and Instructor’s Manual – following the order and topics from the template. I thought it was going to be difficult to convert what I had done but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. Generally speaking, I either had to rename sections I had developed and/or simply move them to a different place.

Then I was in a position to flesh out (or create from scratch) the sections of the template that I hadn’t previously done (for example, relationships with ideas, etc. in the Role sheets). This actually leads to another great thing about this writing experience. While traditional research writing does provide some variety (you can go from working on the literature review to working on the conclusion), working on a Reacting Game gives you much more variation in the type of writing you are doing. When I was tired of working on the narrative, I could move to the game mechanics. When I was tired of working on the mechanics, I could work on the parts of the Role Sheets that were missing. This made it much easier to keep working because I was always able to work on something new and fresh.

By the day the submission was due (conveniently at midnight!), there was still a fair amount left to do. As I reviewed each piece – the Gamebook, the Instructor’s Guide, and the Role Sheets – I tried to remind myself how much I had added, rather than what was still left. I was also comforted by the knowledge that even if the game was not approved for advancing to Level 3, I would have made tremendous progress towards that goal (progress that I could continue pursuing while the game is being reviewed), and I would receive valuable feedback from the process and that I would be in a very strong position to submit the game again in January. This knowledge helped me to fight through those moments when I felt like quitting and just submitting what I had. By midnight (yes, I worked right to the deadline – just like when I was an undergraduate!), while I knew the submission was not perfect, I was extremely pleased with the final product.

Overall, I really enjoyed working on my Reacting game to get it ready to submit to the Reacting Editorial Board. If any of you have been reluctant to devote your time and energy to finishing your game – because you think it’s too far from being ready, or maybe you’re not sure it’s really as good as YOU think it is, or whatever – I would encourage you to make the effort. I think you will find that it is an extremely rewarding process and experience and well worth the sacrifice.