---
# System prepended metadata

title: Food Shift - a syntropy card game

---

# Food Shift - a syntropy card game

## Externalities
* **Presenting the concepts of degeneration/regeneration and "life conducive flows"**
* **Present the possibility of co-operative games (*non-rivalorous, game B, win/win/win*)**
* **Explaining the concepts of REA accounting**
* **Presenting a number of different regenerative practices and food system related activities**

## Game overview:

So, let's create a card game that serves to play with the concepts of shifting food systems and help us understand how things fit together.

We can try to also use the terminology of REA - Resource / Events / Actors - as different types of cards which are then played to achieve flows.

We can be inspired by games like "*Pandemic*" , "*Race for the galaxy*" and "*Magic: the gathering*" for how dynamics of synergy may work.

### Flows

I propose a collaborative game where we start the game with a **flow meter on a bunch of different flows** like: 

- water availability
- bacterial/fungal/plant/animal diversity
- organic carbon
- nutrition
- heat
- electricity
- (and maybe trust! what enables playing Agents?)
- (necromass?)

At the beginning of the game these flows are in **rapid decline (*degeneration*)** and the object of the game is to take turns in making plays that **reverse and then expand these flows (*regeneration*)**.

## Endstate (Finite game)
**Objective of the game is to avoid the falling to zero (stopping) of any of the flows, and also then try to raise all flows to twice the level they were when the game began in the least amount of turns!**

## Cards
**Gift cards** (or markers) are needed to create events.

**Event cards** are played as the main interactions with the food system flows. May be either one-off or re-occurring events.

**Actor cards** are enabled by the flow of trust, needed to preform (play) event cards.

**Movement cards** (*beneficial* and *catastrophic*) occur each turn and effect the flows. 

## Possible game mechanics
* levels of diversity flows affect productive output (yealds) of events? **yealds are gifts**
* certain events can only be played if a sufficient level of a flow is reached? (e.g. not enough water, can't play "market gardening")
* how can trust or intiaitive be used to affect what can be played? Could a higher degree of trust allow for playing more events? 

## Event card example:
*a conceptual example of the event card for mushroom logging*
![Mushroom Logging card](https://i.imgur.com/StwfyjH.jpg)


## Initial Drafts
![Page 1](https://i.imgur.com/4GiHWZ6.jpg)
![Page 2](https://i.imgur.com/XRQUZcG.jpg)



## Possible resource cards:

- Seeds
- Biochar
- Bacteria
- Mychorrhizal spores
- Yeasts
- Saprophytic Fungi spawn
- Seedlings
- Hand tools
- Pumps/Irrigation
- Heat
- Nuts
- Wood
- Berries
- Meat
- Dairy
- Seaweed
- Crop residue
- Vegetables

## Possible Events: 
(+flows, **!YEALDS!**, *?INPUTS?*)

- Composting
    - +bacterial diversity, +fungal diversity, +organic carbon, **!Compost!**, *?Crop residue?*
- Market Gardening
    - +nutrition, +bacterial diversity, +organic carbon, **!Vegetables!**, **!crop residue!**, *?hand tools?*, *?Seeds?*, *?Compost?*, *?Pumps/Irrigation?*
- Run a nursery
    - +plant diversity, **!Seedlings!**, *?Compost?*
- Seed Farming
    - +plant diversity, **!Seeds!**, *?Compost?*
- Biochar production
    - +electricity, +(in-organic stable carbon)*, **!heat!**, **!Biochar!**, *?Crop residue?*, *?Seaweed?*
- Fermentation
    - +nutrition, *?Vegetables?*
- Agroforestry
    - +bacterial diversity, +fungal diversity, +nutrition, +water availability, +organic carbon, **!nuts!**. **!vegetables!**, **!berries!**, **!wood!**, *?seedlings?*, *?compost?*, *?biochar?*, *?Mychorrhizal spores?*
- Silvopasture
    - +bacterial diversity, +fungal diversity, +nutrition, +water availability, +organic carbon, **!nuts!**. **!meat/dairy!**, **!berries!**, **!wood!**, *?animals?*, *?compost?*, *?biochar?*, *?seaweed?*
- Water retention landscaping
    - +water availability, +organic carbon, *?hand tools?*, *?Pumps/Irrigation?*
- Mushroom Logging
    - +nutrition, *?wood?*, *?Saprophytic Fungi spawn?*, *?hand tools?*
- Indoor mushroom farming
    - +nutrition, *?crop residue?*, *?heat?*
- Biofertilizer production
    - +bacterial diversity, *?crop residue?*, *?yeasts?* 
- Compost tea production
    - +bacterial diveristy, +fungal diversity, *?compost?*
- Ocean farming
    - +nutrition, +organic carbon, **!crop residue!**, **!seaweed!**
- Washing & Shelling
- Drying and powdering

## Possible Actor cards:
*could be needed as enablers for events*
- Designer
- Soil Biologist
- Machinist
- Farmer
- Ocean Farmer
- Communicator
- Arborist
- Food Artisan
- Transporter

## Possible Movement cards (! as negative), cards drawn each round:
*affecting the flows in different ways and enabling/disabling events*
- #Guild and apprenticeships movement
- #Ecosystem Restoration Camps
- #Bare feet movement
- #Cool labs
- #Microbial Explosions
- *#!Deforestation*
- *#!Flash fires*
- #Care Economy
- #P2P movement
- #Open Source Enterprise
- #Root cellar & communal solar storage
- #Powdered health
- *#!Flooding*
- *#!Ecological Niche Failure*

## Additions
* Collaborate with [ReGeneration](https://regeneration.org/)
* Mostly REA obeservational layer, could game include explanation and mechanics of REA "planning" and "knowledge" layers?
* Link to resources [here](https://www.notion.so/foodshift/Food-Shift-Media-Library-78e5e8cb087e4427b23af3c0ec3ec8ba) from action cards.


## Expansion pack
**Psychotechnologies!!**

