Living through the 2008 financial crisis and subsequently reading The Big Short, Flash Boys and Liar's Poker, I was shocked. Shocked not just by the despicable actions, functions, and mechanics on show when you peeked behind the curtain, but also by my own (and, by my estimation, quite a few others') complete opposite understanding belief of the rules and regulations in place.

I made the party game "Let's Commit Fraud!?" as a direct response to these feelings, trying to capture the absurdity of how blatant problems were by using a satirical card game to make my point.

The game loosely mirrors one of the big factors in the 2008 crash. Players are dealt a hand of cards that can consist of 'resources' and 'effects'. Resources have a value, a type, and a risk rating.

Each round, players place as many cards face-down as they want into a central pot (CDO). Players are free to add or remove cards until they come to a consensus, after which all the cards are revealed.

First, all the effect cards in the pot are activated. These might return resources to a player's hand, protect a certain type of resource, or make a player exempt from any consequences.

After that, all the remaining resources' risk factors are totaled, and if they exceed a certain threshold, the CDO is 'toxic' and will blow up, forcing any player without protection to draw a consequence card. These consequence cards affect all players' assets, even banked ones, often wiping people completely out.

When all players' cards are gone, the financial year is over, and banked assets are added to the players' score.

This gameplay provides a tantalizing opportunity to bluff, lie, and cheat your way to victory and aims to mirror the risk vs. reward mentality that was so prevalent in the real world. The obvious answer is to work together, but with the ever-looming pressure to win and the constant threat of a backstab, can you be trusted not to lawyer up and go for the jugular?