CyberNations

CyberNations is a semi-cooperative legacy board game that puts 1–5 players in the role of generations of leaders in an ever-evolving Australian community and its environment, and each game inherits the world the last one left behind. Designed as an introduction to Cybernetic Futures, it fosters discussions about what we can do, individually and collectively, to bring about the futures we want for ourselves and the generations that will come after us.

Why a board game?#

Games are engineered systems that can model existing systems, critique them or create alternatives. Analogue games, in particular, make the modelled system’s components tangible as physical components — such as cards, boards and tiles — and the relationships between those components visible as rules, scenarios, and resource economies.

CyberNations models a complex system made of a community, its environment, and its successive visions of the future and decisions. It gives players first-hand experience of reading a complex system and attempting to steer it effectively and responsively alongside others who may or may not share similar goals and views.

A CyberNations table mid-setup: the Equity vision card surrounded by the Farmer, Catalyst and Firebrand role cards, with map tiles nearby. — In this example, players seek to build an equitable future while pursuing their own agendas as the Farmer, the Catalyst and the Firebrand roles. Photo: Thomas Biedermann

The player’s primer#

Australia, 2035.

You and up to four others are the new stewards of your community. You are inheriting the successes and mistakes of the previous generations: the choices they made, the issues they failed to address, and the culture they shaped. The people have chosen you to deliver their vision of the future but you have your own agenda… and so do your peers.

You will need both cooperation and competition as you deal with powerful forces of change and unexpected disruptions. Use relationships with humans, technology and place to act; grow your resilience to shocks; and keep the community’s cohesion up, or it will descend into chaos. Whether you succeed or fail, you will record the world you have created in the game’s Chronicle and pass it on to the next generation.

What futures will you create?

Two groups of students playing CyberNations at tables in a workshop room, with a facilitator leaning in to talk to the far table. — Two groups of students create alternative futures at the ANU McCusker Institute. Photo: Dr. Maya Haviland

A complex world that remembers#

CyberNations includes many interlocking feedback loops, which together model the complex relationships within a community and between a community and its environment. The players learn to read, anticipate and steer these dynamic loops as they play.

A causal loop diagram of CyberNations: about twenty coloured nodes, including capacity to act, relationships, cohesion loss, shares of Wilds, Wastes, Works and Weaves, disruptions and resilience, joined by arrows marked plus or minus. — The causal loop model behind CyberNations. Select the diagram to open it at full size.

The game’s “legacy” mechanism connects each session to the previous and next ones. The players do not simply record and pass on game states, but reflect on the evolution of the community and environment under their tenure as leader, and write an account and message to the next generation in the game’s Chronicle. In doing so, the Chronicle in each lineage of games records a unique and ever-evolving history.

When used as a teaching tool, the gameplay is typically followed by facilitated discussions, inviting the players to connect their in-game and lived experiences. Post-game discussions cover the exploration and critique of the game as a model, and invite the players to make creative modifications by “modding” their own ideas into the game.

Four students around a CyberNations board, one reaching to move a token on the community board while the others watch, chins in hands. — Students at the ANU McCusker Institute consider their next move carefully. Photo: Michelle Cheah

Exhibitions#

CyberNations started as a paper prototype in late 2024 and has since gone through many cycles of playtesting and iterative development. It was featured at PAX Australia 2025; in the games showcase at SXSW Sydney 2025; and in the 2025 Games-Based Learning Virtual Conference and the 2026 Metaphorum Conference on Organisational Cybernetics. CyberNations is regularly used at ANU, both in undergraduate and postgraduate classes on systems and futures thinking and in team development workshops.

A 2026 discussion about the game is available on the UniversityXP podcast. Currently a work-in-progress in late stages of development, the game is planned to be released commercially in 2027.

A Cybernetic Studio project by Thomas Biedermann (2024–), part of the Gameful experiences for hopeful futures program.