small steps to fight fascism
This week, we continue our series of announcements to discuss the third game in our pipeline — Small Steps to Fight Fascism. We’re extremely excited about this game and the message it conveys through its gameplay.
Have you ever felt helpless in the face of the daily onslaught of terrible news? Have you ever wondered what you can do to improve the world, when the overwhelmingly rich and powerful seem to be committed to making the world worse? Have you ever tried to get politically active, only to burn out almost immediately because of how hard everything feels? These are among the questions Kyle Cushman and Joe Kell, the designers of Small Steps, address in their game, hoping to leave players with a sense of empowerment they can carry beyond the table.
As a historical offering, Small Steps covers the year or so leading up to Operation Metro Surge, the invasion and occupation of Minneapolis by the United States Immigration Customs & Enforcement agency that began in late 2025 and escalated significantly in early 2026. The Trump administration has bragged about this event being the largest immigration enforcement action in history, with the occupying force numbering more than 3,000 agents. On the ground, ICE’s activity was aggressive and violent. They detained or arrested more than 3,000 US citizens, and killed at least three people — Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot in the street, and Victor Manuel Diaz died while in ICE custody. Whole neighborhoods were overrun with ICE activity, and children as young as five were ripped from their homes. It was not unusual to randomly come across an empty car with its doors open in the middle of the street, a stark reminder of the daily pressure the city lived under for these few months.
The people of Minneapolis responded with incredible strength and determination. Community networks formed to communicate ICE sightings, protect vulnerable neighbors from possible abduction, and help get food and other resources to those unable or afraid to leave their homes. Major protests formed, one numbering in the tens of thousands. The community came together to fight back against this occupation in whatever ways it could, and in February 2026, ICE left, leaving the city to reckon with the aftermath.
In the game, players act as community members trying to build resilience and cohesion in their neighborhoods in response to various authoritarian pressures that keep their neighbors from becoming active and connected. As the name of the game implies, players don’t take huge, sweeping actions. They don’t occupy positions of power, from which they can shape legislation or marshal troops. Instead, they do things anyone can do — donate to a local nonprofit, attend story time at the library, or even just have neighbors over for dinner. These banal activities, however, carry the power to bring the community together to face the looming threat of ICE’s Operation Metro Surge.
Mechanically, the game is asymmetric. Each player character has a unique deck of cards, distinct starting resources (joy, money, energy), a different set of personal motivations, and varying interests in the social issues highlighted by the game (such as housing affordability, labor justice, and civil rights). On a turn, you get two actions, in which you discard one card from hand for one of its several uses. You can either contribute the card to a community event by matching its symbols to those required by the event or you can perform the action printed on the card itself. Contributing to events helps your community but costs you resources, while using your cards’ effects replenishes your money, energy, or joy but costs you the opportunity to further the community’s goals. You must balance your activism and your self-care to avoid burning out, which hampers your ongoing effort by making it even harder to contribute to your community.
Attending community events builds neighborhood resilience, which relieves authoritarian pressures. As these are removed from the game, more of your neighbors “open up” and become more active in the community. When active, neighbors can be included in your actions to help resolve future community events, or to help with the energy and money costs to travel. Building this community cohesion is the primary goal of the game, but you must remain aware of how much it’s costing you personally.
All this builds to Operation Metro Surge. Each round, a different national news event surfaces and shapes the landscape of play. When the OMS event emerges, you have reached the end game and the community must respond to a series of traumatic events specific to the ICE invasion of Minneapolis.
Once the game is over, players evaluate the status of the city and of their characters. Have you successfully relieved enough pressures to bring your neighbors into the fight? Does the community feel like it’s suffering, thriving, or just getting by? What has it cost you personally? Are you so drained that your activism will fizzle out? Do you feel joyful about this struggle and your role in it? Or are you just treading water, still struggling to get through each day? Whatever the outcome, the primary design intent of Cushman and Kell is for players to walk away feeling like they can make a difference, not only in the game but also in their own communities. Small Steps to Fight Fascism recognizes that this is not a fight you win, exactly, but one that is ongoing, requiring consistent engagement and community building to maintain the resilience needed to withstand whatever comes next.
Hawk & Dove is pleased to bring such an innovative and timely game into the world. Like Painkillers and El Pulpo, Small Steps has an edge to it, taking an unblinking look at the history it covers. Unlike these other two games, it shifts the perspective on power and how it can be wielded. Now more than ever, with authoritarian governance on the rise globally, this game speaks to the work every person can do to resist such regimes.
~Brooks
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