Rising Waters

It’s Spring, 1927. While Americans dance the Charleston and drink bootlegged liquor, the Mississippi Delta faces a flood of epic proportions. If battered river levees collapse, everything important to you will be washed away.

RISING WATERS is a cooperative board game built around area control, set collection, and variable player power mechanics where players experience life through the lens of African American plight. In the game, you will confront two forces – racism from white landowners and the power of nature. Persevere by drawing on your community’s courage and strength from your family, church, music, farming, and education.  Can you manage the rising waters to stay alive?

RISING WATERS is a 2-4 player game of the strength of community, methods of resistance, and the struggle against nature suitable for both classroom use and casual play from Central Michigan University Press.

Educational goals

RISING WATERS helps educators expand the perspective of the 1920s. The game centers African Americans to help players understand and empathize with their plight during the 1920s environmental disaster. Racism appears in the game through the appearance of Landowner cards like “threats,” “force,” and “race hatred.” Since landowners also controlled the labor in the area, the cards include “job offers,” which players can use to build or raise levees to protect from floodwaters. As another source of protection, relief camps helped African Americans gain access to relief supplies but were also some of the most racist spaces during the crisis.

Yet African Americans weren’t solely victims in the 1927 flood–as always, they maintained a sense of agency and sources of power to survive. In the game, this comes from the Community cards, which include blues, farm animals, church, garden, family, and education cards. The cards help players upgrade their abilities during the game as well as resist racism. RISING WATERS serves as a powerful illustration of the difficulty of African American lives in the Jim Crow South. Through the game, students and teachers will be able to have challenging conversations about the endemic nature of racism and how it complicates life during a crisis.

Recommended Age : 14 and Up
Number of Players : 2 to 4
Average Play time : 60 to 90 Min

Components :

1 Double-sided Game Board
6 Player Boards

Community Card Deck (100 cards)

Landowner Card Deck (100 cards)

Weather Report Deck (77 cards)

4 Player Aid Cards

10 Community Goal Cards

6 Wooden Towns

27 Wooden Pawns

66 Wooden Cubes

10 Wooden Rafts

89 Blue Flood Hex Tokens

60 Blue Water Level Tokens

60 Brown Levee Tokens

7 Relief Camp Hex Tokens

1 First Player Marker Card

3 Track Counters

1 36-page Game Manual