North Korea Is Best Korea 2020

North Korea is Best Korea is a medium-weight strategy eurogame in which players portray prominent Generals in the Great Leader's regime.

During the game, players will be improving the country's logistical, industrial, propaganda and defense infrastructure, as well as undertaking special and secret projects and dealing with unexpected events and the actions of the Imperialists enemy. All those actions will earn the player the Great Leader's favor, which having the most of, is by itself the game's sole victory condition. But the Great Leader's favor can also be spent to obtain resources, so the players must carefully measure when and how much to bank on that political capital.

The game board depicts North Korea and is divided by geographical regions, One distinctive mechanism of the game is the elaborate use of shared resources within the country, meaning that, in a turn, a player must activate a whole region, paying the activation cost of all buildings there, regardless of which player they belong to. The player may also use the power and railway networks, built by any player, to pay those costs, and that would result in them gaining the favor of the Great Leader. The international aspect is also an involved semi-cooperative system of several intertwined elements, ranging from smuggling arms and workers to other rogue countries, buildings defenses against Imperialist's air attacks, up to the dreaded nuclear project. This military aspect is equally important as the economic one, since it often carries punishing results and a number of losing conditions.

With its abstracted mechanisms and the graphical use of the actual idealistic aesthetic of the North Korean regime's propaganda, the game manages to remain suitable for younger audiences. Adults, nonetheless, will recognize in the bizarre cartoony card images the sharp contrast with the known realities of the country.

—description from the designer