Reclaim

Rents are rising, investors are buying up Berlin – and in Reclaim, two to four players fight back together. My bachelor thesis is a cooperative board game about gentrification: as residents of Prenzlauer Berg, Wedding, Kreuzberg, and Neukölln, the players try to save their neighborhoods before they are gentrified.

The game builds on the cooperative mechanics of Pandemic. Instead of a virus, rent increases spread across 24 places – from the corner café to the local club. The event cards are based on real protest and policy tools: seed bombs, paint bags, squats, and urban knitting, but also social housing, social preservation zones, and the rent cap.

Nine characters, each with a special ability – from the tenancy lawyer to the squatter, the hipster, and the Swabian. To keep a heavy topic fun to play, the texts and illustrations are deliberately humorous. A flat, organic illustration style and one color per district make the cards quick to read at the table. I tested it in several rounds with paper prototypes before printing the final game.

Now I’m bringing Reclaim to the screen. With the help of Claude, I’m turning the board game into a playable web version – built on the original board, rules, and illustrations, still cooperative for 2–4 players, on one device or online via QR code, and with a new knowledge layer on the tools against gentrification. Work in progress.

Play the prototype ↗