#92: Prime Time

Designer: Elad Goldsteen

In Prime Time, you will contribute to the continuing moral and philosophical decline of America by filling the boob tube with cheap crap meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator.  Perhaps you’ll even develop the reality star that produces a know-nothing twit that gets elected president and brings the planet to the brink of disaster!  Huzzah!

You are a TV executive, that is currently running crappy, forgettable programming.  You’ll hire stars, develop shows, and secure advertisers in order to make a fortune.  Better shows and stars cost more money, and there’s an auction mechanic to claim them.  And some actors are better at certain things — you know, Sci-fi stars will do better for you in your shitty Star Trek ripoff than reality TV celebs.

Interesting Mechanic: Viewer Demographics.  For each day of the week, there are demographics that prefer to watch TV that day — blue cubes prefer Mondays, for example whereas pink ones prefer Fridays.  When players develop shows, they want to develop shows that are optimized to satisfy those demographics.  Players can look ahead in a forecast section of the board to see how demographics will change over time, and players can manipulate those cubes with HR.  It’s a neat way to capture a relatively complex problem.

There were two Television Planning games that came out near each other: Networks and Prime Time.  Both are entertaining, and most people prefer Networks as its an easier game to play, but I prefer Prime Time, as it’s a meatier, more innovative design.