Let's take a look into East German History and the end of the former socialist state, the GDR. November 1989. Under pressure from the civil rights movement, the GDR leadership has to retreat. The dictatorship is in an overt crisis, from which it will not recover. This affects the Ministry for State Security as well. On November 6th, a few days before the Wall came down, Minister Erich Mielke orders the destruction of documents.

For the card game Stasi: Over and Out players change their usual perspective and work for the Stasi. The goal of the game is to destroy as many documents as possible. Every destroyed document earns points. At the end, the player with the most points wins the game. Civil rights activists will try to stop the players. The game ends when five or more citzen cards are revealed. Players have to choose between distracting the citizens or destroying more documents. Like during the original events in 1989/90, the Stasi will lose the game to the citizens.

Players take turns. Every turn they have to draw and reveal three cards from a draw pile. These cards represents documents of different values (0 - +4), citizens of differnet values (-1 - -4), and special actions, representing historical artifacts, events and a way to break the games symmetry. Players can then play two actions, two different ones or the same one twice: Destroy one document, distract one citizen, take one special action. Destroyed documents are placed face down in front of the players, citizens that were distracted come back face-down underneath the draw pile, special actions are discarded and maybe shuffled back in the draw pile later.

The rules of the game are explained during the course of the game. Cards with rules text are sorted into the draw pile. Players learn the rules as the game proceeds. Cards are numbered, so the order of the cards can be restored. In addition to this there are cards, that explain the historical background. There is no booklet. The game starts the moment the box is being opened.

Stasi: Over and Out was developed by Playing History, a company that is specialized in creating games with historical background, games that are educational. This game was designed to be played not only in educational environments, but also at home, by smaller play groups and by people who are not used to learn game rules and play games.

—description from the designer

Games