WE'RE DOOMED: Great Card Game, Terrible Outlook on Life

Summer started off with a bang in the Strange household—one of our kiddos pulled some epically bad behavior and, as a result, lost screentime privileges for two weeks!

The one upshot of this arrangement is that he was B-O-R-E-D and willing to indulge in more boardgames than usual. Our new family favorite? A cheery little card game called WE’RE DOOMED!

Why WE’RE DOOMED! Is So Compelling

WE’RE DOOMED! imagines that the world is ending in 15 minutes, and only those who get a seat on an escape rocket will survive. The trick is, the rocket isn’t finished yet. The main choice on each turn is whether to contribute to the (shared) rocket project, or to perform actions which make it more likely that you, yourself, will get a seat on said rocket.

Along the way there are fun complications like opportunities to steal or even “nuke” other players (thus eliminating them from the game.) Since the game is timed, all of this is all done with much shouting and rushing.

I’ve played WE’RE DOOMED! a few dozen times now and have only succeeded in getting on the rocket once. Generally, everyone dies, but a few times we’ve managed to pull together and build a big enough rocket for all the (still-living) players.

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This game is the right level of fun, challenging, and silly. But the secret, nerdy reason that I like it? It’s a perfect illustration of the “tragedy of the commons.”

Our Most Common Problem?

The tragedy of the commons is an idea borrowed from economics describing a situation in which a group shares a common, scarce resource. Any one individual can try to hoard this resource for themselves at a cost to the community. Think overfishing, deforestation, or climate change.

Once you understand the tragedy of the commons, you start to see it everywhere: it’s corporations putting short-term profits ahead of long-term financial stability (the financial crisis), it’s countries wanting to industrialize (and pollute) to gain an economic edge in the short-term while contributing to climate crisis in the long-term.

What makes the tragedy of the commons so interesting is that it taps into that eternal tension between the individual and the community. What is fair? Who gets to decide? And should I take my “fair share,” or do I try to get one over on everyone else?