Friends Like These

Friends Like These is a competitive strategy game where the only way to win is to negotiate, trade, and cooperate. Players help each other to help themselves but must be careful; every deal made might push your opponent closer to victory.

Mechanics

Prisoner’s Dilemma • Semi-Cooperative Game • Trading

Game Overview

Core Concept:

  • Players are rival senior publicists at the same PR agency, each assigned a high-maintenance celebrity client during awards season.
  • To win, players must help others just enough to survive mounting scandals — but only one client can rise to stardom.
  • Negotiation, manipulation, and strategic betrayal are key: every deal could push an opponent closer to victory.

Key Systems:

  • Suppress / Exploit / Ignore Dilemma:
    • Players secretly decide how to respond to each scandal:
    •  — Suppress to protect the agency (cooperate),
    •  — Exploit for personal Fame (defect),
    •  — Ignore to ride coattails, gaining a small benefit while increasing Heat.
  • Heat Track (Shared Doom):
    • A global scandal pressure meter. If it maxes out, the agency collapses and all players lose.
  • Fame Track (Personal Victory):
    • Fame earned from exploiting scandals, winning media moments, and satisfying client-specific goals. Highest Fame wins.
  • Dual Asymmetry:
    • Each player has a unique publicist role (permanent ability) and is randomly assigned a celebrity client with specific Fame preferences and quirks.
  • Negotiation & Trading:
    • Open, non-binding trades of favors, rumor tokens, and suppression promises drive dynamic social play and betrayal opportunities.
  • Endgame Scoring Paths:
    • Bonus Fame for suppress-heavy play, chaos-causing risk-takers, loyal fixers, or well-balanced strategists.

Design Principles:

  • Tense Social Tradeoffs: Players must constantly weigh helping vs. self-interest.
  • Structured Player Interaction: Trading and table talk are gameplay, not fluff.
  • Player-Driven Escalation: Greedy players can doom everyone — or ride the edge for victory.
  • Replayability: Randomized clients, dynamic scandal deck, and evolving playstyles through dual asymmetry.

Endgame Structure:

  • Planned Ending: Game ends after 6–8 rounds representing the media season (e.g., Gala, Talk Show Week, Awards Ceremony).
  • Sudden Death: If the Heat Track hits its max, the agency collapses. No one wins.
  • Final Round Tension: Double scandals, increased Fame/Heat stakes, and last-chance betrayal bonuses keep the end explosive.

Next Focus Areas:

  • Build and balance Scandal Card deck (effects, values, scaling).
  • Develop PR Agent roles and Celebrity Client archetypes.
  • Formalize Fame/Heat interaction with core action system.
  • Create reference boards and bonus-scoring tracker UI.
  • Playtest Ignore as a coattail mechanic with soft punishment system.

Summary:

Friends Like These is a sharply competitive, semi-cooperative strategy game where surviving the media circus requires careful alliances and calculated betrayals. With dual asymmetry, moral dilemmas, and social maneuvering at its core, the design is now locked and ready for system detailing and early playtesting.