Dream State is a partnership between the game designers Steve Barger and Gray Smith. They were inspired to create CITIZEN more than a decade ago after a grueling stretch of highly publicized Congressional gridlock. Smith, a public media executive by profession, wanted to shine some light on who pulls the government strings by creating a set of baseball-style trading cards for each member of Congress, with voting stats and major campaign contributors. When he showed a sample to longtime friend Barger, a global video producer and project manager, Barger said, “A good idea, but you should make it move.” And so they did.