,

Honestly, I started The Long Game Project with the terrible business plan of 'If we kind of build it, and they will (maybe?) come'... I was not sure if we had a product-market fit at all but improving strategy and decision making might be a good place for my mishmash skillset.

After a few months of existential worry, I began some loose plans and writing and rewriting some scenarios I would love to simulate one day.

Eventually, I decided I needed someone more LAWFUL GOOD to balance the party and also my self-diagnosed, chaotic-leaning NEUTRAL GOOD. Enter Sanjana the Operator. Architect of order, Warden of time, Keeper to the Agenda, Slayer of Shinyobjects and Savior. Soon joined by Crier Igor (marketing) we were ready to set forth.

Together, we aimed by the end of the year to have designed a handful of scenarios and run ONE large event. We find ourselves at this year's end wildly over succeeding on these. We ran several big events and covered topics from Volcanic food supply shortages to AI doomsday and sugar taxes.

It was an absolute blast and we cannot wait to work on the ideas we have for next year.

We are in the midst of our year in review (which is a practice I have done for a while now and would highly recommend tightening your feedback loop) and we have released the templates of our year in review here if you want the exact thing we are doing. Also, a meta-goal for us to productise a bit more of what we do ourselves for strategy and decision-making.

In this email:

1. This year by the numbers
2. Highlights
3. Content
4. Survey
5. Course
6. Game system
7. Experts needed

But first, a wholesome photo of us on 'launch day'. (Something Sanja made me call pushing a blog post or something...)

1.

This year by the numbers

Large events run 5

Biggest game 51 players

Scenarios designed 135

Net Promotor Score 74 🤯

(Sanjana tells me this net promotor score means that when people use us, they are very likely to recommend us. A short little Google shows me that we are currently in the world-class elite category and I instantly feel the competitive urge to keep it there)

2.

Highlights

A big highlight for me was the massive 51-person game we ran with Allfed to simulate what would happen if a giant volcano went off and threw so much ash into the air that our crops would fail for 10 years. Scary.

It was a great spotlight and their research efforts around food disaster crisis and the game created a great atmosphere. Everyone had a seriously amazing time and it culminated with us drafting a letter with our findings to the Government, so some impact as well.

Stay tuned for the report, which looks amazing.

3.

Content

We are ramping up putting more content out there around all things strategy and decision-making. Feel free to be an early subscriber/follower to the blog as we build it out. Podcasts and YouTube content are daunting undertakings but on the shortlist of ideas.

4.

Survey

We spend all day teaching people to improve feedback loops, and yes, we practice what we preach. You will go on Santa's Nice list for sure if you do this for us. Especially helpful as we decide how to best provide value to you all in 2024.

5.

Course

We are going to build a modular series of courses on strategy, decision-making, game design, tabletop exercising, wargaming, red teaming.... the lot. There are definitive ways how to learn these skills and we want to be a pillar of teaching these things in a pragmatic and value-driven way.

No promises on timelines just yet, but we will likely be running a skeleton version of it for a free/reduced price in exchange for feedback and improving it sometime in Q1. Let us know if this interests you with an email or drop into the discord, which is quiet but I am there and accessible.

6.

Game system

I have been working for 18 months now on a game system for tabletop exercises. I want to design something that can be picked up and played in 5 minutes and is modular to fit all types of simulation, exercising, roleplay, and red teaming scenarios to be clipped on top of it like Lego blocks. I want it to be understandable by politicians and busy CEOs, suitable for military wargamers and also to be understood by anyone who has played DnD, like, once, so they can run games at their workplace. I want it to be the default go-to system for quick and dirty tabletop exercises that people can jump into with good fidelity.

This is a hard design brief. I have spent hours building a rulebook that got to (at one stage) 160 pages and then whittled it down to core rules that fit on 2 pages. I have made over 100 pages of random tables.

It is also a skeleton I will give out some beta copies for playtesting soon. Again, if the words playtest copy fills the Santa sack in your mind, drop into the discord and @ me.

7.

Experts needed

We need to build a Rolodex brain trust to help us out with questions from subject matter experts. If you are interested in answering our bat signal for games, please fill this out.

That concludes 2023 for us.

One of the things Sanaja the Operator made me think about is an organisational mission statement. What do we stand for? what is our driving purpose? What gets our organisation up in the morning and would be happy to die knowing it had achieved?

This is deceptively hard to wrap up a brand vibe and driving statement. Especially when your core aim is more 'paradigm change' than 'solve a pain point'.

My working draft so far is:

"To live in a world where it's weird to not play games at work"

That feels about right for now.

See you in that world soon.

Dr Dan.