I could see this being a great activity in a high school civics class. Very creative. One rule that tripped me up is:
> If two parties tie in a district, nobody wins it.
This isn't realistic as ties don't happen in practice in elections, and some party will end up representing it. But the spirit of the gerrymandering concept is conveyed well enough.
It's a major factor in today's puzzle, but it doesn't seem to come up as much in past puzzles. I think yesterday's is more fun and doesn't have the unrealism. https://gerrymandle.cc/game/2026-06-17
We're three siblings from a gerrymandered district in Austin, Texas, and this is the story of how we designed a board game about gerrymandering — and ended up at the Supreme Court with 82 copies of Mapmaker: The Gerrymandering Game.
I do believe the solution to gerrymandering in general is to move towards proportional representation so that the individual boundaries of a distinct are not as influential.
Maybe add that as an option to the game?
I sort of think that the increasing drive to gerrymander everything to the extreme may eventually show that First Past the Post voting is fundamentally broken and we have to replace it with proportional representation - or at least that is my hope.
Lovely game! Takes a bit of fiddling to get the hang of it, but so do most puzzles worth doing. The instructions are clear, the presentation is great and I like the decision to prioritise a fun game over representing real Gerrymandering accurately. It looks like a lot of thought has gone into this.
It would cool if the result-screen showed how voting-reform would have eliminated/reduced the gerrymandering problem... but I guess that can't happen, since it relies on additional data that's simply not part of the puzzle.
For example, one can't show how ranked-choice voting would reduce the nefarious win of X without also knowing how the Y/Z populace breaks down in terms of voting for the other side over X.
I love the idea .. how you changed an important issue into a game and probably that would bring awareness. I am not an expert but such decisions probably affect a lot of people and no one spend time and learn about it. This is a fun way to learn. Thank you !!
I'm sorry you've found it a bit difficult to pick up! There is an introduction below the game, but it can still be a bit hard to follow since it's all text. I'll see about adding an additional, optional, interactive tutorial.
This felt very satisfying to win! (Day 39) I'll try to remember to keep coming back.
I think what made me quite confused at the start is mis-reading the instructions that every district could have no more than four houses; I thought I had to split the land into equal areas. Once I understood that, the solution felt much easier.
Personally I've been very surprised with the public support for the increase in political gerrymandering. I know that people think it is worth it for the short term gains, but it still seems like a bad idea to me.
very basic issue, its not clear to me how to start a new district, it just extends the old one. I managed to do it accidentally a couple times, but I don't know how
By default, you work on one district at a time. Clicking adds tiles to the current district until the current district is full, then clicking will create a new district. District size is determined per round, described at the top as eg. "draw 5 districts of 4 populated tiles".
You can also click a square in the "Districts" section of the header to switch to a different district, including an empty one to create a new one.
I could see this being a great activity in a high school civics class. Very creative. One rule that tripped me up is:
> If two parties tie in a district, nobody wins it.
This isn't realistic as ties don't happen in practice in elections, and some party will end up representing it. But the spirit of the gerrymandering concept is conveyed well enough.
Yes indeed, not super realistic, since it would never happen. but it does make for a more fun puzzle :)
It's a major factor in today's puzzle, but it doesn't seem to come up as much in past puzzles. I think yesterday's is more fun and doesn't have the unrealism. https://gerrymandle.cc/game/2026-06-17
There's a board game from a few years ago that I'd recommend for such a situation: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/252997/mapmaker-the-gerr... - it was a kickstarter and available beyond that for a few years: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1639370584/mapmaker-the...
The designer diary: https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/111646/designer-di...
... and a review of it in context: https://civiceducator.org/review-mapmaker-gerrymandering/I do believe the solution to gerrymandering in general is to move towards proportional representation so that the individual boundaries of a distinct are not as influential.
Maybe add that as an option to the game?
I sort of think that the increasing drive to gerrymander everything to the extreme may eventually show that First Past the Post voting is fundamentally broken and we have to replace it with proportional representation - or at least that is my hope.
Lovely game! Takes a bit of fiddling to get the hang of it, but so do most puzzles worth doing. The instructions are clear, the presentation is great and I like the decision to prioritise a fun game over representing real Gerrymandering accurately. It looks like a lot of thought has gone into this.
It would cool if the result-screen showed how voting-reform would have eliminated/reduced the gerrymandering problem... but I guess that can't happen, since it relies on additional data that's simply not part of the puzzle.
For example, one can't show how ranked-choice voting would reduce the nefarious win of X without also knowing how the Y/Z populace breaks down in terms of voting for the other side over X.
I love the idea .. how you changed an important issue into a game and probably that would bring awareness. I am not an expert but such decisions probably affect a lot of people and no one spend time and learn about it. This is a fun way to learn. Thank you !!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I think I did not understand this game well. May I suggest adding a few introductory levels of increasing difficulty for beginners.
I'm sorry you've found it a bit difficult to pick up! There is an introduction below the game, but it can still be a bit hard to follow since it's all text. I'll see about adding an additional, optional, interactive tutorial.
This felt very satisfying to win! (Day 39) I'll try to remember to keep coming back.
I think what made me quite confused at the start is mis-reading the instructions that every district could have no more than four houses; I thought I had to split the land into equal areas. Once I understood that, the solution felt much easier.
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Can't view it at all.
I won't let me complete the final district (YRBY+" "s) in today's puzzle. (firefox/linux) If I try to do it earlier it auto includes unwanted cells.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean, would you mind sending over a screenshot or video of where you are stuck?
great idea to make Gerrymandle! congrats on the alpha
US/California etc gerrymandering is dramatically illegal IMHO. I see the recent gerrymandering in the USA as a kind of political cancer actually....
Personally I've been very surprised with the public support for the increase in political gerrymandering. I know that people think it is worth it for the short term gains, but it still seems like a bad idea to me.
very basic issue, its not clear to me how to start a new district, it just extends the old one. I managed to do it accidentally a couple times, but I don't know how
By default, you work on one district at a time. Clicking adds tiles to the current district until the current district is full, then clicking will create a new district. District size is determined per round, described at the top as eg. "draw 5 districts of 4 populated tiles".
You can also click a square in the "Districts" section of the header to switch to a different district, including an empty one to create a new one.