The Last Straw is a multilingual board game designed by my old friend Dr Kate Reeve and her colleague Kate Rossiter while Reeve was completing her residency in family medicine. It was initially created as an exercise in exploring ways of teaching about the social determinants of health, but after Kate presented it at a conference, other public health practitioners demanded that she get them a copy of the game for use in their own lives. Now they’ve sold more than a thousand copies of the game, which they manufacture in small quantities on a non-profit basis.
The Last Straw! takes players through the life cycle where they will encounter “macro” issues such as political climate, economic structure and environmental change, as well as “micro” issues, such as individual finances, education, and family dynamics.
Each player develops a character profile that includes gender, socio-economic status and race. The player then receives Vitality Chips based on this profile.
Each character moves through various life stages from Childhood, to Adolescence, to Adulthood and finally to Old Age, updating the profile as the character passes from one life stage to the next.
On the board, a character encounters two kinds of squares: individual scenarios, which the Game Master reads out loud out from the Game Guide, and Community Cards, which affect all the characters on the board and are read aloud by the players themselves.
(Thanks, Kate!)
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