For week 5, I had the pleasure of playing the game Cursed Court. The artwork was nice, and I really enjoyed the mechanic of placing a card face-down between each set of neighboring plays. This quirky mechanic, however, led me to my biggest hurdles during the game. During a few rounds, my 2 cards were the same, such as two Priestesses. Obviously, two other players knew that at least one Priestess existed. So, the challenge was to not call attention to the fact that two points would be given on the Priestess tile instead of one. I couldn’t be too bold and put a lot of chips on the square—lest my opponents would know—nor could I bump people on that tile for too much because it would draw suspicion. Timing was also another factor. How many tiles would I be willing to keep for the whole game just to get those two points? That’s where decision-making comes into play…
Cursed Court ties into leadership in that it constantly necessitates skills like awareness, flexibility, and decision making. You need to be aware of people’s emotions and how they put down their coins. Do they make the action immediately or take time in their response? It gives you a sense of what cards they have around them. Cursed Court also forces you to be flexible, especially when you are bumped off a tile that you really wanted. Sometimes you have to cut costs and plan for failure / being taken over by opposing players. Lastly, this game requires many decisions during each round. Sometimes players choose to consistently bump each other, leading to long chains of asking oneself “What is the best course of action for me NOW?” This attribute of the game additionally ties into flexibility which was mentioned above.
I think my uncle Kevin would really like this game because he really likes to mess with people in a fun, lighthearted way. This game would be a perfect opportunity for him to completely throw games and have the biggest bluffs in board game history.