To begin, I absolutely loved mental blocks. The team work aspect and the challenges that came from styles of communication were a perfect combination for creating a game in which leadership could blossom.

Mental Blocks is, as a said above, a team game. In this game the teams are given blocks of various shapes, sizes, and colors that must be used to solve a visual puzzle. Each person receives a clue as to what the solution is. Sometimes that is an angled view of what the shape looks like, other times it is a flat view of how the colors look and a vague shape. Group members can not share their image with the others but they can do their best to communicate what they are seeing using words and the blocks. This activity does have a time limit so it can be really stressful and without a leader, the group can quickly fall apart. There are also multiple levels of difficulty that can be played, easy or hard, and with or without limitations.

The most challenging thing that I experienced in this game was that I was in a group with far too many leaders. We talked over one another frequently and it was difficult to agree on a possible solution without fully hearing each other. The struggle we experienced in communication did get better as we played a couple more times but learning how to do this was hard, especially since this was only our second class meeting.

As I kind of mentioned earlier, the difficult thing was deciding who was the leader of our group, we needed someone who could listen to each perspective and find ways for us to work together effectively. We also needed a leader who was willing and able to let other people take charge as necessary. This game covers multiple aspects of small group leadership.

FInally, I would like to end this post with a gamer recommendation. I would love to see my brother-in-law and husband play this, I believe that they both have the design concepts and communication skills needed to play but it would be interesting to see who the leader is in a group that includes the both of them.

Okay, I know I’m a bit late to the posting party, but I’m finally sitting down to give my reviews to the games we have each week.
On the first week of class we played Ultimate Werewolf. I was familiar with this game and some of it’s variations before we played in class; however, the experience of playing it in this type of setting was different than any other time I’d played it before.
In ultimate werewolf, you are given a role to play that functions as different characters in a village. We played with two types of teams: the villager team, and the werewolf team. Each team has it’s own goal (i.e. the werewolves want to eliminate the villagers and the villagers want to stop the werewolfs). This game is simple enough to play, you get your roles and then you enter the night phase. One person is a narrator, and they go through and identify who everyone is and call different roles to wake up and perform a task. At the end of the night phase each character who has a task will have completed this task and then the day phase begins. the day phase is when it gets a bit tricky. The werewolfs will have potentially killed someone or that person may have been spared, either way we see the people of village coming together to bring someone to trial as a werewolf and then put them to death. The game continues like this until either there are more werewolves than villagers or all of the werewolves have been found. Any time someone is killed, either by the werewolves, or by the lynch mob, they reveal what role they held in the town which is how it is determined who wins in the end.
Playing this game in class was, like I said, was a very different experience for me. I had played in large groups before; however, those groups were made of people I at least somewhat knew. We had not met as a class before this night so no one quite knew what made everyone else tick and if anyone had any sort of tells as to what character they may be acting as. This made it difficult to determine who was lying and who was telling the truth. While this was tricky, it wasn’t the hardest aspect of the game. The most difficult thing about playing this game was getting people to talk. We weren’t comfortable with each other yet, we didn’t know each others names, how were we going to make accusations with no knowledge of who anyone is. This leads in to the leadership aspect of the game.
In Ultimate werewolf it is important that you are able to make accusations and get a following in order to lynch someone from the village. Natural born leaders can take up the mantel to start the discussion and make an accusation . THis is what shows who the leaders in a group are. Of course a leader is nothing without a first follower, because once one person joins in, we see a snowball effect of people joining in the discussion and the accusations.
Finally, I want to talk about someone who I would like to recommend this game to. I think that my brother, Elijah, would really enjoy this game. He loves games involving deception and role play and has always been a fantasy nerd like myself. This game combines those two aspects of things he enjoys, so it would be perfect for him to play.

This week, we played Ladies and Gentlemen in class. I have been looking forward to playing this in class since J.S. said that this was the first game he chose for this class. I liked the structure of playing in randomly assigned teams of “ladies and gentlemen” and how each side (lady or gentleman) had to use our partner’s advantages to help us win the game occurring on our side. The gentleman was responsible for trading stocks and making money, while the lady was responsible for shopping for the most elegant gown. I was unsure of what side I wanted to choose because in my life, I love to trade stocks to make money so I can buy elegant things!

Playing the game was interesting, although I do not understand the ladies’ side (since the gentlemen’s side was easier to understand, that is the side I chose to play). As a man, I got to collect resources to fulfill contracts. Each contract gave me money. When I returned home from work, my wife had gone and found some beautiful thing to wear to the ball. I have no idea how my lovely lady shopped or what made a dress prettier than another, but I did my best to dress her the best I could (this was funny because I had a guy as my wife).

In this game, I feel that gender roles were important to how the game was played, but I’m not looking to get into a discussion about that. Although the gentlemen’s side was easier, they were the “leader” of the game; they made the money and had final say in bonuses and what to buy. Knowing that would have been useful prior to starting the game. Otherwise, I would have taken on more of a leadership role instead of hiding behind my wife.

In today’s political climate, having a game that forces people to conform to certain “norms” can be looked down on. Everyone is forced to be heterosexual and a male or female. There probably are people who will not play this game because of this, but it is easy to overlook the roles to just enjoy the game. My mom would really enjoy playing this game because she is really good at seeing good things quickly (for looking for resources) and she has quite the eye for fashion, too.

This week, we played Atlantis in class. So far, I think this was the most fun game I have ever played. I loved how there were so many different options for game play, like expansion packs for more options or the possibility of alliances forming. Individuals can also include “house rules” for their games to add more interesting options and another layer of complexity. This is a game that I will definitely need to either go to the Strategic Gaming Club to play or buy it for myself.

Each player starts off with 10 Meeple. Going clockwise, each person places one Merson until all are placed. Then, each player must place two boats to transport their Meeple off the sinking island and to safety. To start, the first player makes three moves with their Meeple or an unoccupied boat. After, the player flips a tile. If it is green, the player must play it instantly. If it is red, the player can hold onto it and play it on their next turn before moving their Meeple. Since each Merson has a point value assigned to it, the objective of the game is to get the most Meeple points to islands. I think part of the reason I really enjoyed this is because I won both games and got lots of Meeple to safety.

Being a leader is imperative to this game. Although there is not a distinct “leader” who runs the game like there are in others we have played, everyone needs to be their own leader and decide what strategy they want to use. Having strong leadership skills is important because if you go out and sink two ships with a total of six Meeple, your opponents might not like you a lot and begin to target you. But who knows? Maybe that was your strategy…

I got super into this game and honestly could spend an entire day playing it. If I am being completely honest, I am not sure who I would recommend this game to. I don’t know anyone who would be interested, so my goal is to introduce this game to some of my friends and hopefully get a group of people together to play frequently.

The 4th game we played in EDL 290, was called Mysterium. In this game, one player acts as a silent ghost whose role is to lead the other players to the murderer by giving out ambiguous “dream” cards which are images made to aid in discovering the murder, murder weapon, and murder location. In this game there are 6 turns and during each of them the ghost gives each player a “dream” card and the player has to make a guess. The first turn a player has to guess who their person is, and if they guess correctly, the player will guess on the location on the next turn. But if they guess incorrectly, then they must wait to the next turn to guess again.

While the games itself is straightforward, the most difficult part is the interpretation of the dream cards. As they are ambiguous pictures, it is the ghost’s job to pick the right card that will lead to the player to make the right selection. The difficulty comes into play as the player does not know the reasoning as to why the ghost put that card down. The ghost could be trying to get the player to associate the colors with a certain subject, or a background/foreground image, or maybe the ghost did not have a good card so he just threw down a random one.

This is also where the leadership aspect plays in. Neither parties, the ghost nor the player, have a truly accurate understanding of what the other is thinking. As such this game places the burden on both players to think about and account for how the other is thinking and feeling. As a leader, one must do the same. One cannot be an effective leader without taking into account the feelings of others, nor can they reach their goal if they refuse to think outside of their own perspective.

I think that this would be a great game for professors to play. As a professor, one has the role to teach a certain subject to an entire class. The class, however, is not homogenous and consists of various students with various learning styles. To be an effective professor, one must be able to take into account that one strategy will not be universal and thus they must be prepared to take the time to try various strategies to fit the need of the student to reach their common objective.