I want to read and dive deeper into game theory, mechanism design and classic reading for someone relatively new to econ. I am a software engineer, haven't brushed up my maths concepts in a while - so open to those suggestions also. but would want to take up more material that deals with practical and abstract sense of these topics instead
TIA!
As a kid I used to draw city maps with my friends — streets, buildings, who owned what — dreaming of a game where you could actually own property and build wealth together. I went on to get a CS degree and an MBA, and that exact combination — the engineering to build it and the economics to make it teach something real — is what finally let me create it. AI tools were the last piece that gave me the time to turn 27 years of wanting this into a real game.
It's called Mint Street — a browser city game where you buy businesses, earn income, take loans, and grow your wealth. Under the hood it quietly teaches real economics: inflation, supply and demand, risk vs reward, why borrowing can build you up or wipe you out. I have two kids, and where I'm from money just isn't taught in school — I wanted something that makes this hard, unintuitive stuff easy and fun to learn.
A few things on purpose:
I'd genuinely love feedback — on the game, the economics, the feel, anything.
This will be a bit out of the ordinary for this sub but I wanted to pick your brains. Hoping it will be interesting for you. Social deduction games (Werewolf, Among Us, Mafia) run on one engine: humans reading and deceiving other humans. The tells, the bluffing, the table going quiet - that is the whole game. I have spent a while building a single-player one, and the core problem turned out to be: when you delete the other humans, what actually replaces that? Gnosia is the obvious prior art, but there is surprisingly little written about the nuts and bolts. A few things I have learned the hard way:
1. Hidden state has to leak through behaviour, never through a number. Under the hood every NPC holds a suspicion value toward every other NPC (a 12-way web) plus a read on the player. The instant I surfaced any of those numbers, deduction collapsed into spreadsheet-reading. What worked was forcing all of it out through dialogue and action instead: you overhear a pair arguing, you watch a vote swing, you notice who stopped defending whom. The player reconstructs the web; the game never shows it.
2. The killer problem is "is this a clue or a bug?" When an NPC acts suspicious, the player cannot tell if it is an authored tell or my code misbehaving. If it reads as random, trust in the whole system dies. I now treat legibility as a first-class, separately-tested property - a behaviour that is "correct" but reads as noise is a failure, even if the sim is doing exactly what I intended.
3. Information scarcity + time pressure stands in for social pressure. With no humans to sweat under questioning, the tension has to come from elsewhere: limited actions per day, a hard deadline (a blood test), and the cost of being wrong. That scarcity is what makes a read feel risky.
For those who have built deduction, bluffing, or "the NPC is hiding something" systems: how did you sell intentionality? What made an NPC opponent's behaviour read as thinking rather than rolling dice?
Love Island is a popular dating show that I’ve recently watched thanks to my gf. It’s framed as a show starting off with an equal number of men and women trying to find love and be in a relationship. However, surviving until the end and winning the final spectator vote leads to a cash prize and brand deals that are difficult to ignore so I have broken it down and isolated what I consider to be the dominant strategy to win the final vote, not necessarily “find love”.
Assumptions: we are a middle of the pack, original contestant of either sex, meaning we are moderately attractive but not terribly attractive to have lopsided number of people pursuing us.
Key mechanisms: you survive by being picked to couple up by a member of the opposite sex. Your partner is your biggest savior and therefore, your biggest liability. You can also be voted off by being unpopular with the 3rd party spectator that has semi-omnipotence into strategy. We can assume key/high drama moments are being broadcasted. Bombshells are newcomers into the villa designed to disrupt or challenge established couples. They usually have a trump card that lasts for one re-coupling ceremony such that they can just pick whoever they like, no matter what. There are other twists every now and then but this is what happens 90% of the time.
Casa Amor: a very interesting mechanic in the game that splits the established villa into 2 blind houses with another equal in size group of the opposite sex. Usually, you can choose to take one of these newcomers back to the Villa, leaving your established partner vulnerable but not dumped. Pivotal part of the game.
Movie Night: My favorite mechanic and probably the most interesting. This serves as a strategy audit for your fellow islanders where there’s no guarantee on what will or will not be shown. It is crucial to survive this.
Challenges: funny/local drama which is usually inconsequential to the game as a whole. Won’t be treating these as relevant to the outcome.
Strategy: The initial coupling is effectively random and not something we need to worry about. If given the option, choose whoever you like and just get through the first day. The next day is important, you need to discuss with the members of your sex first. Audit their general interest in their partners and keep note of the person of the opposite sex that seems the least interesting and sought after. The audit can be considered trustworthy, there’s almost no incentive to lie or be dishonest here so isolate 2 of the islanders that have been deemed the least desirable and “pull them for chats”. Establish interest in both, play whatever challenge there is for the day earnestly and continue. Hopefully before the first bombshells have arrived you have an established mutual interest in one of the 2 low value islanders and are considering coupling up. Continue with daily interest audits but start leaning towards either the islander you think is the least valuable out of the 2 or the one that is giving you the most commitment back. They’re of equal value. Make the choice and establish your couple.
Why we chose the least desired islander: the worst case scenario in this game is a bombshell just taking your couple and you get left hanging. This can absolutely happen and leave you dumped or vulnerable. It’s important to minimize the chances of this happening and go with someone who has the least amount of options besides you possible, maximizing our safety chances. Also, ugly/uninteresting people don’t necessarily count against you in the spectator vote. It’s a no-loss strategy.
The mid-game: you should be in a good flow of auditing, building a generally positive rapport with your fellow islanders, and reassuring your couple that you’re committed. Putting your eggs in one basket here is a great strategy because we have an undesirable partner and uncertain feelings just leads to them trying to cover for themselves. The more secure they feel, the less they’ll feel the need to “graft” with other islanders. Also, if we hit that worse case scenario where a bombshell steals them, we need to maximize chances of them coming back. So just do the challenges and play it safe.
Casa Amor: here’s where things get interesting and usually marks a definite end to the mid game. We need to play this smart just like the opening nights of the Villa. We will 100% be choosing someone to come back with us from Casa Amor. Why? We cannot see our partner and what they’re doing. It’s important we survive. It’s entirely plausible that our partner was identified as a weakling to someone else in Casa Amor and we would be none the wiser. Also, we are building narrative. The spectators need a story. A couple who took no risks during the whole game would be hard pressed to win. So, found the least desirable casa person just the same by auditing interest and lock them in. They don’t have much of a choice as most Casa people would do anything just to get back to the Villa and stay in the game. It’s important you graft respectfully here though (no kissing outside of challenges, no crazy talking moments). We need to remember movie night is coming. Matter of fact, it would be a good idea to offer some sound bites to the cameras about how much you miss your partner back in the Villa.
End game: we have brought our bombshell from Casa back in dramatic fashion. Now, if we played the early game right, we shouldn’t have much of an issue getting our OG couple back, which is the goal. So pretty much discard your Casa partner and attempt to get back with your original. It really shouldn’t take more than a day at worst if we say the correct things. If it’s not happening though, we have our Casa insurance and we’re not out.
End game: Usually the bombshells stop and it’s all about building your case to the spectators. But, we already did that with our Casa shenanigans. Ideally, we’re back with our original partner and we can build our case of the “we made it back to each other” line and that’s been pretty effective to win in the past. If we’re still with our Casa person, we took a hit but we’re not necessarily out of the race. It’s important to kinda “go at” your og partner and antagonize them. Compelling TV is our best bet going forward.
So yeah, if you find yourself on Love Island just make sure to scout out the least desired person of the opposite sex and just send it. You have everything to gain.
No AI used in this at all, all original thought.
Possible outcomes of Austria:
Win: face Spain
Draw: face Spain
Lose: eliminated
Possible outcomes of Algeria:
Win: face Spain
Draw: face likely Switzerland, or Belgium, or England / Croatia / Ghana
Lose: eliminated
Purely from game theory perspective, draw seems to be best possible outcome and Nash equilibrium, since Austria doesn't have preference of winning or draw, and Algeria might have more incentive to draw to avoid facing Spain. Interesting to see how it will be actually played out in the match.
I am a year 12 going into university next year . In order to help my application , i want to read a book about game theory for economics . My maths level is about year 1 undergrad and I want it to be accessible. What are the best options ?