Port of Mars is an interdisciplinary research project sponsored by the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University. Its original incarnation was designed and implemented as a physical card game for 5 players and was made into a digital version that serves as a scalable and evolving research testbed to study collective action.

“We're researching effective strategies for navigating dilemmas of shared resources, common good, and collective action under conditions of high uncertainty and high risk, like those in space. Players are citizens of an early Martian community charged with working together to provide for the sustained welfare of the settlement. All player actions are tracked, allowing researchers to analyze and examine the behaviors that tend to produce success or failure. Each individual game is a simulation and modeling exercise for future human space communities.”

Liz Leo worked with Lance Gharavi and Michael Yichao to design the game logo, subsequent symbols, and gameplay cards & boards (illustrations by Titus Lunter)

Official Study: Keeping Up Shared Infrastructure on a Port of Mars: An Experimental Study