Monthly Archives: April 2024

GOTW: TIME Stories

At first, I didn’t understand why someone wanted to change their entire final project because of this game, but now I definitely do. I really enjoyed this game and can’t wait to play it next week. I think the mechanics are super fun as well as the content. I do think the hardest part is working against the clock, which I assume is the point, specifically when you go to areas and can’t unlock certain cards. For example, my group went to the Dormitory too early and couldn’t unlock one of the cards. So, we had planned to go back but ultimately wasted our time on something that ended up not helping us in the slightest. Otherwise, I think our team is doing really well in the game. We’ve been able to unlock a lot of things and had the right items to do so, and were even able to solve a fairly difficult puzzle (like a legit puzzle where you have to put pieces next to each other, not the entire puzzle of the game) in one try at the very very end of class.

I think leadership is fairly obvious in this game, as you’re acting as a team. It tends to be that one person decides where to go and then the rest of the team either agrees or disagrees and the game goes on. I think it’s also important to note that the leadership in this game feels a lot more like a club’s exec team than it has in other games we’ve played. For most of the other games, even if you’re on a team, you end up working alone to achieve the goal. However, this game has a team of four people (ironically the size of a typical exec team in the clubs I attend) working together to meet one goal. Also, it’s pretty representative of each person having their own strengths that need to be drawn on to help the team.

I think I also was able to find a good team that meshed together well, which is also an important part of finding an exec team in clubs. No one necessarily is attempting to take charge (unless they have information that they can’t tell others) and instead, everyone is working together. There have also been no disagreements or fighting among the team members, which works really well for achieving the goal. We also work together super well. I said earlier that we were able to solve a puzzle on the first try and the only way we did that was by listening to each other’s input, working towards the same goal, and using each of our strengths.

Compare and Contrast: Ultimate Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower

Ultimate Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower (BOTC) are two social deduction games that we have played over the last semester that share quite a bit in common mechanically. However, both have distinct differences that set them apart in many ways. Both games utilize a day and night cycle in which two teams attempt to meet the necessary criteria to bring their team to victory. For Ultimate Werewolf, the townsfolk try to catch and kill the werewolves before they can kill the whole town. Similarly, BOTC has the town attempting to catch a demon and its minions before they can murder the whole town. During the day, the town votes to execute one person in an attempt to kill a member of the evil team. During the night cycle of both games, the werewolf/demon faction chooses one townsperson to kill. Each game utilizes unique hidden roles to give players an edge for their team.

            While these two games are both similar, each presents itself differently and provides unique experiences for its players. For example, while both Ultimate Werewolf and BOTC use hidden roles, BOTC makes sure that each role is unique and has an ability of its own. In Ultimate Werewolf, many of the players are simply townspeople with no addition abilites. I see this as both a positive and a negative. For one, I believe the lack of an ability could make the game less exciting for players. However, I also think this requires players to then utilize other skills in the game to make up for that. On the flip side, everyone having an ability makes things very interesting in BOTC. This is especially the case because of how BOTC works. What roles are in play is unknown, unlike in Werewolf. It is harder to tell if someone is lying about their role. Not even to mention that the demon gets to see what roles are not in use. Another difference between Ultimate Werewolf and Blood on the Clocktower is that BOTC relies on private conversations before each day’s execution. This feature I really enjoyed. It allowed you to secretly communicate and construct alliances way better than you could in Ultimate Werewolf. For Werewolf, you are largely limited to communicating with those near you, if not to the entire group at large. Another difference that I was particularly fond of in BOTC was how death was handled in the game. Unlike in Ultimate Werewolf, you don’t just sit around once you die. You can still communicate and participate just as you had when you were alive. The only caveat was that you could no longer use your ability. Additionally, you were allowed to vote one more time during the course of the game. A vote beyond the grave. One thing that I also felt made a distinct difference between these two games was the hidden special mechanics that BOTC had (the red herring and the drunk). Both added some nuance and intrigue to roles, making it harder for the townsfolk to win. Ultimate Werewolf does not have special conditions like this. Finally, the biggest difference I noticed in the games was the role of the Gamemaster. While Ultimate Werewolf largely only had the gamemaster playing a passive role, the gamemaster of BOTC was an active participant in the story of the game. They’re role is to make the game as interesting as possible and to try to get it to come down to the wire in the last few rounds. I really liked this, as it made the game feel more alive.

            Overall, I really like both games. The social deduction genre has been a favorite of mine for years, and while my experience with these specific iterations has been limited, I found myself enjoying them both while playing with the class. I like the differing roles, especially those of BOTC. Each time you play will result in a vastly different experience from the last. I feel like this game is good for large groups of people. I did find Werewolf easier to pick up, but that is largely because there are some more complex mechanics in BOTC. From what I have seen, the the game is evenly balanced from round to round, with one side never really being too far above the opposing team just by default. Additionally, I really enjoy games where I can act both cooperatively and competitively. Working as a team in a game is just so satisfying.

I didn’t find many negatives in either game, though I did feel that BOTC had more replayability compared to Ultimate Werewolf. It expanded on and filled in any of the gaps that I felt Werewolf had. Not only did every player get a unique ability with their role, but the game felt a lot more secretive and strategic. Every person had a role to play. I also really liked the role of the GM and dead players. The GM felt more like an active participant who had an effect on the outcome of the game as opposed  to just a neutral party who facilitated it. Additionally, players were still important throughout the game, even after dying. This meant that unlike Ultimate Werewolf, there was still an incentive to remain tuned in to the game. While this didn’t have much of an effect on our gameplay, I also thought I should add that BOTC has additional role sheets to spice things up if it began to feel stale. Overall, both games were a lot of fun – but for me BOTC simply did it better.

GOTW: T.I.M.E. Stories

This week, we played a narrative mystery game called T.I.M.E. Stories. In the game you play the part of a team of time travelers sent by an organization to stop a temporal fault from occurring. Our team consisted of four players, each of which took over a receptacle (a host body) in order to explore a specific moment in time and space to stop the fault from forming. The hosts you can play as all have different strengths and weaknesses as well as abilities that can come in handy throughout a run. As a team you explore several locations across a map, fighting off enemies and solving puzzles. However, time is limited, as the organization that sent you there can only hold the link for so long before you are forced back into reality. Many roles have special abilities that can be used throughout the game to gain the upper hand for a player’s given team. The goal of the game is to successfully complete the mission in as few runs as possible, by solving the many puzzles found throughout the map.

Our story started right before we were to be connected to our hosts, and we were briefed on what we needed to do. Our team is sent back to a mental health asylum in 1921. My character was Marie Bertholet. The other characters we had were Felix Bonnunfant, Edith Jolibois, and Mademoiselle Doume. So, we set out to explore the asylum, finding keys, breaking into lockers, and trying (failing) to steal the key off a doctor in the kitchen. Playing as Marie gave me some advantages, especially when it came to the speech skill. I was able to turn any speech roll I made into a minor success. Using her to speak proved very useful in many situations throughout the asylum. However, there was one scenario with a particular orderly that was not so successful. Overall, our team seemed to move quite well, cooperating with each other, and noting down anything we found important as we went. None of us lost any health during the first part of the game, more so having issues with time as we often rolled high on the time lost dice. Our team actually worked quite well together, collectively coming to decisions, and helping each other out as much as possible. We found the secret passageway after murdering Dr. Hyacinth. By the end of the session, we had gathered two pages of a book. Unfortunately, we are near the end of our time loop, and likely will lose everything next week. However, with the knowledge we gained this week, our team should be able to proceed quite easily. I am excited to see what happens.

The hardest part of the game was deciding which options were important with the time we had remaining. While our group was very good at gathering and using information and items, we often ran into issues that cost us precious time points. Our team actually did really well with working together and sharing authority. Our abilities were actually spread pretty evenly, allowing us to prioritize where each of us should go ahead of time so that we worked as efficiently in a new location as we could. I actually believe that that is a way each of us showed leadership. While each of us took on the Time Captain role at least once, we each collaborated and based our decisions on where our strengths lie. The only time other than that that I saw leadership come into effect was deciding where to travel next. Typically, one person would propose moving locations, and then we would all agree on a location.

I loved this game so far. I love games that dig deep into lore, and this one definitely dug deep. I also thought that the mechanics really complimented it well. I loved the exploration aspect as well as the collaborative play. We all had the same goal, which I have not seen much in games I have played recently. I liked the risks we all took, as we all were curious to discover every little secret in the game. This both lead us to learn a lot in our first run, while also being something that cost us a lot of time (I am looking at you moon step man). This being said, this game definitely feels like a game you can only play once. I know there are other decks out there as well, so that makes me a bit tempted to purchase it for myself and play it with my friends. I think my friends Xavier, Katie, Korben, and Roai would love this type of game. They love narrative based games just as much as I do.

GOTW: Ladies and Gentlemen

This week, our class played a game called Ladies and Gentlemen. It is a team-based game where players are divided into pairs – a lady and a gentleman. Both players play on opposite sides, with different gameplay depending on which role you were. Players on the Gentlemen’s side had to gather money in the form of stocks and make money for their wives. This side was dexterity based and involved very little strategy. On the Ladies side, players had to set up shops and strategically visit other shops to be the best dressed by the end of the game. Each team had seven rounds to collect money and purchase clothes for the ball. It is through the money the Gentlemen earned that the Ladies would be able to purchase their outfits. The Ladies and Gentlemen could not communicate on how their situation on their side of the board was going, so they largely could not strategize between collectively. One just had to trust the other.

         For this game I was playing on the Ladies’ side. My partner actually ended up being a friend of mine despite teams being randomized. There were three other pairs that we were up against. The first round took the longest, as we all were getting set up and gaining an understanding of how each turn was. Being on the ladies’ side, my primary goal was to get the best clothes I could by trying to deduct what other Ladies had in their shops. Unfortunately for me, my shop was usually stuck with servants being sold. I tried my best to strategize where I went for each round, but I definitely found it took me a while to get comfortable with what was the best way to play. I think this game is definitely one you have to play once to understand on the Ladies’ side. Me and my partner did a pretty good job, but I believe we ended up in third place. Each item of clothing had a star rating, and the more stars you had at the end of the game the better you did. One pair absolutely blew the rest of us out of the water. What I really liked about the game was the lack of seriousness we all had around it. We all definitely appeared to have a good time, and many laughs were shared.

           The hardest part of the game was strategizing. I do not play a lot of games that usually require me to strategize, so this took some time for me to pick up. Just getting used to the mechanics took some time as well. However, once everyone understood everything, they needed to do it became a lot easier to play and went a lot smoother. I definitely would like to play it again if given the chance. Besides these difficulties, none of them made me overly frustrated. It just took time to learn.

            Personally, I liked Ladies and Gentlemen. I thought it was a neat concept, especially for a satirical play on the old-timey roles of the European upper class. While playing on the ladies side of the board requires more strategy, something I usually try to avoid, I still had a lot of fun. I did not take the game too seriously and was not necessarily playing to win. I just enjoyed the banter and getting the chance to step into a rather silly role. I particularly liked how the group I played with also seemed to enjoy their roles as well. If I had to name something I disliked, it would be the fact that I was unable to strategize with my partner. This made it harder for me to communicate what I needed. Even though I disliked that aspect, I understood it was an important addition to the game to add another level of challenge.

With that being said, I did not see many forms of leadership beyond those who chose to lead the night and day cycle. They made sure the game was running smoothly while also taking care of what was needed for their roles on each end of the board. I think my parents would like this game quite a bit. They like silly games like this, and I feel it is a game they would enjoy when they have friends over for a game night. Considering they know other couples; I think it would be interesting to see whether those relationships would have an effect on how people played the game. Overall, it was a great experience, and I would love to play it again.

GOTW Reflection: Blood on the Clocktower

Ooooh whee Blood on the clocktower was pretty fun. My first time playing it was at Meeples the Tuesday before we played it in class, and to be honest, I was almost completely lost the first time. Alyssa and I talked about it afterwards and agreed that playing with so many skilled players at hyper speed was definitely a trial by fire and I burnt (I was killed the first night and never even got to use my power- gravedigger lol). It was still fun watching everyone work things out thought!

Playing in class with mostly beginners was a lot more fun. I was the Baron, and while I did not win, I got a lot closer to it! The evil team, ring-lead by Logan (though Logan was not the imp) did a pretty decent job of convincing the villagers of our side, or at least confusing them at times. I think unfortunately our other two red team, as newbies, gave some things away or didn’t have the strategies to employ, which is NOT their fault and I still had a great time! The hardest part of this game was, as the evil team, deciding what narrative you were going to push and what story you need to make come to life, because you have to decide that pretty early on so you can all get your story straight and confuse the good team!

This game is alllll about teamwork and working together cohesively. I think leaders usually emerge, like Logan was a leader for my evil team as the rest of us had less experience, but they’re not necessary- in my Meeples game I think almost everyone was running their own agenda! Blood on the clocktower encourages all styles of teamwork.

I’m 0-2 on this game, but I would absolutely play it again! I think it would get better the more I play it, and gain an understanding on more of the characters and possible situations and everything else. I think it would probably be too complicated to introduce to my family, but maybe some of my friends. Those friends being Logan, Aaron, and Alyssa, and I know already that they like it. But yeah.

GOTW Reflection: Ladies and Gentlemen

Ladies and Gentlemen was very fun! I was a lady, and I had a great time getting into character with my fellow ladies, Logan and Aaron. My gentleman and I kind of blew everyone out of the water with our secret hack: the servants!!! Logan and Aaron at the end were like HOW DID YOU GET SO MANY SERVANTS, Aaron definitely thought he was going to win and was surprised that Charlotte and I came out on top.

I didn’t really find any part of the game “hard” per se, but I suppose the most difficult part was choosing which category was going to be available in my storefront, that was the least straightforward for me.

As for leadership, this game is definitely about teamwork between each lady and their gentleman! Charlotte made it incredibly easy for me from her stock success, she bought almost everything I asked for, and we excelled. I tried to pick and choose which items/servants to ask for to accommodate money, and valued the ones I thought would end up with the most victory points at the end.

I think my family might enjoy this game- I’ll consider bringing it into the foray! The partner mechanic is definitely a favorite of ours, switching up the whole game is easy by just switching partners. I think Alyssa’s comment in class about it maybe getting boring after a few plays is valid- but you can always switch sides and partners to keep it interesting! I liked this game 🙂

GOTW: Blood on the Clocktower

This week we played a game called Blood on the Clocktower. It is a social deduction game that is very similar to a previous game we played called Ultimate Werewolf. It is a hidden roles game where individuals are given a token by the storyteller (the one controlling the game flow) at the beginning of the game. There are two sides: the townspeople and the Demon. The townspeople are trying to survive the night while also attempting to find and kill the Demon and their minions during the day. The Demon attempts to stay hidden while slowly killing off all of the townspeople. Each role has a specific ability that can either come into effect once a round, or once throughout the game. The game ends either when the Demon is killed, or when the Demon kills all of the townspeople. During the day, everyone could talk to each other either privately or in groups in an attempt to share and spread information. One part of the game that I particularly liked was the role of the storyteller. Their role is to make a good story, thus meaning they aren’t taking any sides and simply want the game to end as dramatically as possible.

           For the round we played in class, I got the role of Mayor. The mayor’s ability makes it so that if they are attacked at night, there is a chance someone else dies in their place. There is a second ability of the mayor that does not really come into effect until the latter end of the game. It states that if there are three people at the end of the day cycle, and no execution is made, then the townspeople win. In the beginning, I did not move around much since I did not have any information. I mostly just stuck with the group that sat near me. I spent most of the game this way, as the individuals around me one by one claimed their roles. Near the beginning of the game, we almost immediately were able to take out the poisoner due to the Ravenkeeper dying. The washerwoman revealed himself and corroborated the information. With a bit of assistance from the cook, we took out the demon during the second day. Unfortunately for the townspeople, there was a scarlet woman in play, so the game did not end there. Throughout this time individuals would exchange information and talk to one another, seeking to form trust. I shared my role with the washerwoman, in an attempt to create trust. I did not want to share my role too early, knowing it could result in me being targeted early on. Looking back, however, that might have been a better idea. With a little bit more digging, and a couple more deaths, the townspeople successfully took out the Baron that was in play. I ended up being executed when the fortune teller pinged that I could potentially be the demon. This was because I had the status of being a Red Herring. The game ended up coming down to the wire, with the final execution occurring when only three players remained. It was during this vote that I used my ghost vote (the single final vote someone has once they die). The townspeople won once the scarlet lady was executed.

            The hardest part of the game was knowing who to trust and defending myself with a role that was hard to prove. It was hard to know who to trust as you did not know who could be telling the truth. Not all the roles were in play, so people could bluff which role they were. However, I also found it really hard to defend my role in particular because the mayor’s ability neither provides information nor can be controlled. I felt largely like I had to rely on connections I made with individuals who were proven to be the role they claimed to be. Even then, I still ended up being executed. Despite these difficulties, I still really enjoyed the game. I really like games like Blood on the Clocktower. I used to play Town of Salem (a similar online version) all the time with my friends. I would recommend this game to anyone. It is a great game to play when you are at a party or have a lot of people over. I do not necessarily think you have to know everyone to have a good time. If anything, it is a good icebreaker. I feel like I could play this game with a good variety of people.

            I saw leadership in a couple of ways while playing Blood on the Clocktower. The first way was how people would often take the initiative to engage others in conversations. Be it to get information or to solidify their own role, they were taking action to make connections and find answers. A second way I saw leadership was during voting. Many people took strong stances and stepped forward with the evidence they had. They used this information to sway the group one way or the other for a vote. While a little bit obvious, I also believe that the role of the storyteller itself was a leadership role, as the storyteller controls the game cycle while also providing information to players based on their roles. One person I felt showed a lot of leadership skills was Alyssa. I felt like her role in the game resulted in a lot more chaos, and yet she also seemed to be the most outspoken player. I thought it was very neat how she played. All in all, I had a really good time playing, and I certainly wouldn’t mind playing it again if given the chance.

GOTW: Blood on the Clocktower

I really enjoyed playing Blood on the Clocktower, and it might be my favorite game we’ve played so far this semester. I think I enjoyed it because it was a social deduction game, which I’ve come to enjoy, but unlike Werewolf or Two Rooms and a Boom, for the most part, you can freely talk to anyone you want to. I also really enjoyed the part of the game where if you die you can still participate and don’t have to just stop playing like in Werewolf. In our playing of the game, I was the Undertaker which meant that I knew which character was executed the day before. I enjoyed this role, which is maybe why I liked the game so much, because I was on the good team (being on the evil team stresses me out) and because I gained information each night.

I think the hardest part of this game is knowing who to trust. Obviously, this is a part of all social deduction games, but it didn’t appear as much in Two Rooms and a Boom because we always showed everyone our team or in our specific playing of Werewolf both because I didn’t know many people yet and because I was on the werewolf team. But I think because I have made connections with people at this point in the semester I was more inclined to trust them. For example, I completely trusted the four people I was sitting near to be on the good team, so I was surprised when one of them turned out to be the demon. I think this problem of trusting people is also exacerbated by the fact that you can have private conversations with anyone in the game. In order for me to get people to trust me in these conversations I chose to tell them what my role was and what I learned during the night. So, because I wasn’t killed for telling someone on the evil team this information, I trusted them to be on the good team.

This relates to leadership in a similar way to the other social deduction games with the idea that people on a leadership team might have different goals with their organization. It was shown that not knowing those goals could lead to a worse outcome for either person and that the group in the majority may get what they want despite not being entirely right (if the evil team had the majority at the end the good team wouldn’t have stood a chance). I think this game also shows how much you have to trust other members of your team. Without that initial trust, the team may not get anything done and could end up destroying themselves in the process (if I had not trusted those people around me I wouldn’t have told them what I knew and some of the connections we drew that helped us win the game wouldn’t have happened).

GOTW: Ladies and Gentlemen

I enjoyed Ladies and Gentlemen, but I’m not sure how many more times I would play it because I think it is very repetitive. However, I think I also played the easier of the two sides (gentlemen) so maybe switching to the ladies’ side would allow for more plays. I don’t think anything was really difficult on my side of the game, it was just grabbing pieces you wanted and then buying my teammate the clothing with the most stars (I assumed this was the determining factor of winning the game). I guess if I had to pick a part of the game that was difficult it would be finding a number tile each round. I tended to not find one until the very end and either got stuck with #3 or #4.

While it’s a bit hard to find a leadership topic in this game I think the teamwork with your partner, despite not knowing exactly what they are doing, to reach the goal of winning is a good representation of leadership. In leadership settings, you often have a lot of people working with you to achieve one goal, but you might not know exactly what it is they’re doing behind the scenes to achieve that. For example, in student organizations the President might not completely understand the Treasurer’s role and vice versa. However, they both do know that the other is doing their best to achieve the goal of the club (of course assuming everyone has the same goal).

I think the subject matter of the game is a very interesting topic to discuss. While I completely understood that the game was satirical in manner, I can understand why other people may not see it this way. The women’s game seemed to be all about buying clothing and they were significantly limited in what they could do; they were only able to buy certain things if their husbands agreed to it and were not told why they did or didn’t purchase something. I do think, however, that this is slightly remedied in the game by the women owning shops and having control over what is placed in them. Assuming it was more accurate, although I haven’t researched this time period so this may be incorrect, it would probably be the men who were in charge of the financial decisions of the shop and therefore would determine what could and could not be placed in the shop.

Ladies & Gentlemen

This week in class we played “Ladies & Gentlemen”, this was my first time playing this game and it was a very good experience. This game is designed for 4-10 players and was designed around high society where players will be a couple with their teammates. The game is very straightforward and strategic as you try and collect the most stars at the end of the game.
The hardest part about this game was collecting the correct tokens if you played the role of a gentleman. You had to be quick and notice what tokens you need in order to gather money and resources to buy items for your significant other. Another flaw in the game was picking a token with a number on it. If you did not receive a low number then other players will purchase resources before you had the chance.
“Ladies & Gentlemen” showcases a variety of leadership skills such as persuasion, influence, and making important decisions under pressure. Leaders in the game have to make crucial decisions each round on what clothing to buy for their significant other and what pieces will allow them to gather the most stars. Overall, this game was very fun to play and I think my friend Jake would love this game as he is very interested in competitive games and environments.