Author Archives: hinklel3

Trying Out T.I.M.E Stories

This game seems to have so much potential and I would love to play it again, but hopefully with people that have played it before. My favorite thing about this game is the artwork and the mystery aspect. I felt like I was somewhat in a video game or a movie. I wish that I would have watched more educational videos on how to play before playing because I would have had a better understanding. The people in my group also did not seem to have a good understanding of how to play, and with such a complex game, it’s important for everyone to be on the same page. This game taught me that it’s important to not rely on other people to know what is going on because someone has to take on the leadership responsibility/ role and instruct others in that situation. If there’s not someone who understands enough to explain, everyone is just lost. I think we figured the game out to the best of our ability, and what missions we did complete were fun. There are still a few questions that I have about how to play, most of which have to do with the tokens and symbols.

Another question that I had while playing the game was since there are 4 people playing, what do people do if they’re in the same room? Who gets to pick up the card with the clue on it and who gets to receive the object? I also feel unsure about what the different characters really mean and how our character choice impacts the story. I know each character has strengths and weaknesses but we didn’t use the characters enough to fully understand how that impacts things. Lastly, I think the end of the game confuses me as well. It sounds like there’s a built-in story so I would like to know what about the game is different each time it’s played and what incentive there is to play the game again if returning players already know what happens. I definitely still have a few questions but hopefully, those could be answered if I ever have the opportunity to play the game again. 

To be honest, I don’t think most of my friends would be able to sit through an entire game of Time Stories, I think it would be too complicated and too much of a time commitment. However, my friend Josh might enjoy the game because he enjoys video games and I feel like this game demonstrates some video game-like qualities. Josh also likes to fully commit to things he’s doing and doesn’t like giving up and also does not like losing, so I feel like he would be more likely to sit through this game than other people because of the challenge. At the end of the day, I hope that I get another opportunity to play this game and I was a little bummed that my group did not want to continue playing. 

Ladies & Gentlemen: Insights From A Lovely Lady

Ladies and Gentlemen was overall a pretty fun game, I thought I would really suck at it but it was pretty decent. I would like to play the game again and see if there’s more to it because I feel like I didn’t fully understand the whole strategy aspect of the game. As playing the role of the lady, I was focused on finding a cool outfit and so therefore I wanted different pieces and I tried to get them to match if I could. I thought I was asking for a lot of stuff but compared to the other ladies in the group, I think they asked for more items. I don’t know if the value of the items or the amount of money each item is worth is more important, but I assumed the value of the items would be more essential. Overall I don’t really even remember who won this game if the ladies or the gentleman won, and I also feel like because the women are going against the men, yet one lady and one man won, I got a bit confused about who the true winner is. While I got kind of lost determining who the true winner is, I got confused figuring out who all the losses were as well. 

I did enjoy that I could go to the other stores of the other ladies in the game, but I do feel as if the people who made the game should rethink their being servants in the game because I think it made people uncomfortable purchasing them, even if it’s just part of the game. It’s a lot more fun to purchase necklaces, bracelets, rings, dresses, shoes, umbrellas, etc. vs servants. I thought the outfit revealed at the end of the game was my favorite part. It was fun to see the outfits the other players found. I also think it would be interesting to play the male character. I think I would understand the game a lot better if I had played both parts, despite watching the introductory video multiple times. I also think this game would be fun to play with a group of experienced players that got really into the role-playing aspect of it. 

This game can relate to leadership because you need to be knowledgeable and strategic, which leaders also need to be in order to be successful. Sometimes in leadership, you need to know your audience and be able to manipulate situations to work in your favor, which is also a part of the game as well. I think my friend Josh might enjoy this game because he is very analytical and the job of the male role would be intriguing for him. I also think he would enjoy the challenge of pleasing his lady and buying her the things she needs. If we played this with our usual group of friends, we would have a great time because we’re comfortable enough to be goofy with it and would be okay doing the character impersonations.  

Touring Ticket To Ride During Free Play Day

This week we had a free week and I chose to bring a few games, one of which my friends and I ended up paying, being, Ticket to Ride. I’ve wanted to play this game for a while so I was really excited to have the opportunity to play, and to have JS there to help our group when we had questions. Ticket to Ride seems like a really complex game at first but it’s not too hard to catch on to. I played with a partner because we had an extra person in our group and I was honestly glad to have the extra help because I would have been confused otherwise. Overall I think I have a good understanding of the game, except for how the tunnel feature works, since I did not use it. My partner Anne and I had the longest train in the game and it was a really fun mission to have and goal to achieve. Other players seemed to catch on pretty well as well, even though it was everyone’s first time playing. If I were to play the game again, I think I could semi-confidently play on my own.
There were a few challenges to playing the game, one of them was trying to figure out which cities the cards are pointing at exactly. Because this is the European version of Ticket to Ride, there are a lot of cities close together and it can be hard to tell which city the cards are telling you to go to because it’s just a dot and there isn’t a lot of clarification. Another challenge of the game was playing upside down. We had to gather around a table and the board was upside down for half of us, and I was one of them. The cities are difficult to read upside down so I needed to get up a few times just to make sure we were on the right track to where we needed to be heading. Lastly, the game could get a bit dull at times. There aren’t really any plot twists or anything, the game is pretty repetitive and I felt like there were moments during turns where players were zoning out a bit. However, at the end of the game everyone seemed to agree that the game was fun and that they would enjoy playing it again. I think because the game is simplistic, it’s a nice game to play with music or a movie on in the background, just kind of a game for a nice chill evening.
Other things I enjoyed about this game is the individuality aspect, I like that everyone has a mission they are trying to accomplish that is secret from the other players. I also enjoy that this game has different elements to it like implementing both strategy and chance. This game is also very approachable for a variety of ages, which is really cool and a hard thing for games to overcome. I could see myself teaching this game to someone half my age, or someone three times my age, and I genuinely believe both age groups would enjoy it. I would like to play this game with my grandpa because I think he would enjoy the theme of the game and would understand how to play it without getting frustrated.I also think this game can relate to leadership because leaders are usually trying to execute a mission or goal, which you are doing in this game. Once you pick a mission, you’re pretty forced to be committed to it if you want to be successful at the game, and leaders must stick to their mission as well. Some missions take a lot of time, effort and determination, which is required in this game as well because this game is lengthy.

It’s No Secret That 2 Rooms & a Boom is a Bunch of Fun!

Two Rooms and a Boom is a game that I actually had played prior to class, and it was just as fun in class as it was the first time I played it a few years ago my freshman year of college. I think the first round is challenging and makes people question whether or not they actually can get into this game because it is uncomfortable and people don’t understand how fun and complex it can become. I think it’s a great game to play with large groups of people and helps people get to know each other a little better. Even though you are talking about the game directly and you can’t always trust what people say during the game, you start to recognize people and become familiar with their names because they need to be talked about in order to continue the game forward. Personally, my biggest struggle with this game was just getting started. I felt shy about asking other people to see their cards, and because my first role was the devil card, I was nervous to even talk because I didn’t want to accidentally tell the truth. As someone who is generally pretty honest, this card was very hard for me and I definitely messed up a few times. 

Other roles that I had during the rounds of Two Rooms and a Boom are the shy guy, a normal red team card, and the robot. Of these roles, the devil was my hardest, as explained earlier. I enjoyed the normal red card the most because I was able to show my card to anyone and be completely unconcerned about repercussions because there weren’t any. I liked being able to show my card because then people with other interesting cards were able to expose themselves to me and I was able to figure out the game a lot faster. It is very limiting to not be able to show your card, and even though my role was very basic, I almost felt as if my role had suddenly become very important when I was able to gather important information that others could not obtain or did not know yet. I almost felt like a housekeeper. A seemingly unimportant role, with a lot of secrets to keep. While I enjoyed this role and aspect of the game, I also think my friend Josh would really enjoy this game and would be very good at it. Josh is very intelligent and enjoys strategy games, or games with complicated dynamics that he has to try to figure out, like this one. Josh is very good at reading people, remembering information, and taking initiative in complex situations. For these reasons, I think he would really enjoy playing this game and would be very good at it. 

This game I think can relate a lot to leadership because, in leadership, the leaders are tasked to figure out a lot of team dynamics and manage relationships between people to suit the best interests of everyone collectively. If a leader is not paying close attention to their people, they might miss out on important details happening with their team. In an organization, there are several different types of intricate roles that all loosely or directly relate to each other, and leaders must learn how to navigate these dynamics. There’s a lot of multitasking in this game, as there is in leadership. Lastly, something we have discussed in one of my other classes is that leadership is not specific to someone with a leadership role, but that anyone can step up and be a leader at any time. This is especially true for this game, as smaller roles can end up being very important to the cause and people can somewhat choose to what extent they would like to be involved by asking certain questions or performing certain actions. 

Survive-Escape From Atlantis, a Whirlpool of a Game

This week we played Survive- Escape From Atlantis and overall, I enjoyed this game. The game itself is very simple and I like that it implements so many aspects of other games into it, such as Battleship and Sorry. Getting started with the game was difficult at first because of the different elements to the game set up. There’s some pieces that are a part of the expansion pack and we weren’t totally sure which pieces we needed and which were part of the expansion pack at first but we were able to figure it out. We had a little confusion as to where to put our pieces on the board. It seemed strategic to put all of our pieces as close to us and our dock as possible, but yet we wondered if there might be an advantage to spreading them out more. We all ended up putting our pieces close to each other and our dock, which I think was somewhat a good strategy. I liked that everyone I was playing with had never played this game before. While I think this made the game take longer, nobody had a strategic advantage because we were all just kind of playing the best we could without prior knowledge and were on equal playing levels. 

As far as game play, I had planned to load a full boat and take it quickly to my shore, which did not work out for me. I can’t remember what happened to my first boat, I think a whale hit it. However, I was able to quickly load 2 other boats and was working on taking them back to my shore when a whirlpool hit both of them at the same time. In hindsight, I wish I would have left some of the people that were far away and would have just immediately taken a not full boat to shore just so I could get at least a few points. I only escaped with 1 point, which was not very good! However, I think it was a good strategy to not put too many people on the tiles that were supposed to be eliminated first. A lot of other players ended up in the water and eaten by sharks due to putting their tiles on the first eliminated ones. There were a lot of interesting game play dynamics and I appreciated that people were simultaneously working in favor of themselves, while also somewhat in the favor of others, and somewhat against them. For one turn you might be working with someone, and then the next turn you might be working against them. This can happen by choice or just by the nature of the game. 

Next time playing the game, I think I would really like to try it the normal way again and see how my fate changes. After playing once more and getting the hang of a new strategy and game play, I would like to try to play with the expansion pack because that seems like it would add even more interesting and intense game dynamics. I think this game can relate to leadership easily because there’s a lot of multitasking happening at all times. While you’re working to save your people and get them back to shore, you’re also concerned about what is happening to your players all across the board that might experience difficulties getting back on shore. The players also need to demonstrate leadership by being dedicated to their own mission. I don’t agree with this, but some styles of leadership are very dominant and people will actively step on others in order to get what they want. This game brings out the competitive nature in people and in order to survive, one must engage in the cutthroat aspects of the game and stay dedicated to each personal mission. It’s also important in leadership to learn how to reroute when things don’t go according to plan, and that’s something we did a lot in this game. 

I think this is a game that not only I would play again, but I would also want to play with my ex boyfriends’ family from back home. This sounds odd, but we used to play a lot of games together and I think they would enjoy different aspects of this game. I think the turns take too long for my friends at school, they would probably get bored waiting on people to make decisions for their turn, but my ex’s family doesn’t mind long or complicated games. 

Fiasco & My Pre-Determined Death

This week playing Fiasco was interesting. I’m not sure what the normal group dynamic is playing this game but I played with a group of friends that all knew each other and I had a fun time, but I don’t think we played the game very seriously. It was humorous, and we spent 90% of the game laughing, which made it enjoyable. I think next time I’m going to watch a more comprehensive instructional video before playing the game again because I think we were overall a bit confused and were unsure if we were playing correctly. It was fun to listen to the different story lines people came up with, but I don’t know if I was really good at this. I think I was good at connecting ideas, but coming up with new plot or story lines was somewhat difficult for me unless I had a really good idea. The hardest part was getting started. After choosing our locations, needs, objects…etc, we had an adjustment period of just not knowing what to do next but once we had a story going, I think we all became invested to an extent.
Because of commitments I have next week, I told my group in the beginning that I wont be here next week to play part 2 of the game, so we decided in the beginning that my character would die at the end. I think deciding this in the beginning almost made the story easier in a way because while we were interested in having subplots and other things needed to happen so people could fulfill their needs, we knew that the one thing we absolutely needed to do was kill my character, so there was a common goal established. My main need in the game was to get rich through fraud and trickery. This need was met pretty early on in the game because one of the other girls playing had established that we were government officials that were embezzling money, so as long as I had maintained this status, I didn’t really have any motives except to help keep the plot moving in the direction of me getting killed. I was unable to relate a lot to this game, but I can see my own values modeled loosely in the game. Because my character was made to be devious and a fraud, I feel as if I can somewhat relate to this persona of being secretive and mysterious. I don’t share myself and my emotions easily with strangers, so few people really truly understand who I am and what I’m about because I have a lot of hesitations about opening up to people who I don’t know for sure genuinely care.
As far as a general play synopsis, my character’s name was Lady Victoria. Lady Victoria was a government official with Sandy. Sandy and Lady Victoria were embezzling money and Sandy decided she didn’t want to be a part of it anymore, so she asked Dobby(another character) for help in murdering me. Dobby had already been to jail before and had a need to repair his reputation so he didn’t want to be caught up in a scandal, and they devised a plan to blame the murder on Papa Elf (another character.) Gianna had a motive for murder, so she joined in the plan with Dobby and Sandy to kill me. Papa Elf came home from the bar and accidentally knocked on my door, thinking it was his own house. I took him in because he was very clearly drunk and we thought we might have some fun so I turned off the cameras, showing him where the cameras were. While I was sleeping, he cut the cameras so that when I’m murdered, nobody can see who did it. I don’t remember all the connections here, but this is most of what I remember.
I think this game can tie to leadership because leadership requires adaptability. When someone starts to have ideas for the storyline that you didn’t have and starts to bring the game in a new direction, the characters have to be adaptable so the game can keep moving. Leadership also requires keeping the bigger picture in mind during smaller interactions. It could have been easy to take the story away from where we had intended for it to go, just like with leadership it’s easy to get caught up in the details and stray away from the most important tasks at hand. I think my friend Josh would really enjoy playing this game because he’s super smart and can easily create stories. He loves creating interesting conversations and I think he would be able to create some really crazy plot twists and character connections. I am interested to know how the game is supposed to end though because I also can see it being difficult for him to enjoy if there’s not a clear winner or clear team winning at the end.

Werewolf Game Reflection, From The Perspective of A Werewolf

The game of the week this week was werewolf and personally, I really enjoyed this game. I thought it was very complex and I enjoyed all of the different elements to it. The storyline was fun, as well as the narrations from JS. I felt like it was a great way to get the class to engage with each other, and we seem to be more comfortable with each other now. I wish the game was easier to play with a smaller group, because I really don’t know when I’ll be able to be in a group this large playing games again, but if given the chance, I would enjoy playing this game again. I think my friends on campus, which I met while studying abroad, would all like this game, and that we would get very intense while playing it, however, there’s only 6 of us. The game is different for each person depending on which role you have, and you’re unlikely to get the same role each time you play, making it a game that never gets old or boring. I enjoyed that JC had us clap while the nights in the game were happening, just to make it more fair. I also enjoyed that we were able to speed up the timing towards the end so we could concretely finish the game.
I was a werewolf in the game, so I felt like there was a lot of responsibility on me to protect my role and not be obvious. I haven’t played a game like this in a while, and when accused, I’m not a great liar, so I was pretty nervous about being detected. Somehow others figured out it was me just based on external evidence, I guess the PR ( I think) person detected that there was a werewolf in my section of the circle and I was suspected, because the guy beside me already told everyone his role. This is just how the game is played and I’m glad that others had a more comprehensive understanding, but I was a little confused how I found out. I wish I had read about what the roles do prior to coming to class, because while playing the game I had some questions, but asking those questions would have easily given my position / role away. Even just asking to speak to JC privately would emphasize to everyone that I clearly have some sort of important role and don’t want to mess it up. For this reason, I think giving everyone cards with a description of every role and what they do, would be beneficial for reference during the game. I think this is a game that gets easier the more you play it as well, because those who were more familiar, seemed to have an upper hand and were able to play strategically. It was helpful to have these people.
I think this game ties to leadership very well by the idea of group think. Once one person said their case for believing someone was a werewolf, everyone else seemed to jump on board with that idea, rather than forming their own opinions. Even after the person tried to defend themselves, everyone still voted for them to be removed from the circle anyways. We didn’t necessarily have one leader, but we had about 5 people that were consistently talking, and I think they acted as leaders in a way. I think with games like this, some people kind of have to step up and speak more, otherwise the game won’t go anywhere. With the rounds needing to go quickly, we didn’t have enough time to go around the circle and ask for each individual opinion. Those who wanted to speak were free to do so, and I think we were all kind and respectful of each other’s opinions. I can see how some people might get frustrated during this game, but we all acted mature. I felt like while I wanted to take on more of a leadership role so I could more easily protect my position, as well as the other werewolves, I didn’t have enough confidence / information to make logical sense. I would have ended up talking myself into a hole and giving away my position. Because I had a very important and specific duty, I wasn’t too willing to take risks. I think in leadership if I have an intuition about something, accompanied by the knowledge, and drive to achieve something, I definitely am not opposed to taking risks. In this instance, the risk was too heavy for me. I just wanted to be a part of the game for as long as possible so I could complete the werewolves mission, as well as being more entertained by engaging, vs sitting out. I was very nervous that someone was going to detect one of my other fellow werewolves, and then by suddenly chiming in or being the literal only person not to vote for them to be removed, that would have obviously given away my position as well. I’m still not sure what the best strategic move is in that situation, but I hope that I can one day play this game again and watch more interesting situations unfold.

My Mysterium Reflection: Eerie, Elaborate, Entertaining

This week we played the game Mysterium and generally, I really enjoyed this game. Two of my favorite games are Codenames and Clue, both of which I included in my top three favorite games for the “what kind of gamer am I?” survey. With this said, i’ surprised someone hasn’t recommended this game to me sooner. I think the game was a bit complicated to figure out at first. I watched a few different videos about how to play the game and still had some problems understanding how it’s played, but after the first few rounds it gets easier. I think because so much responsibility revolves around the ghost in the game, I feel like it would be easier to play with a ghost that really knew the game well, or at least wasn’t brand new, because as everyone else is figuring the game out, the ghost was too, and that was difficult.
Some of my favorite things about the game are the artwork, and the guessing interpretation.l the artwork on the cards is very beautiful and it creates a dynamic where every game is not going to turn out the same each time. I like all the different options and possibilities. I also really enjoy the theme of the game, since I’ve always been into mysteries. I felt as if we were really a part of a novel or mystery movie, and I like the immersion effect. I also enjoy guessing and trying to analyze the cards, as well as trying to think like the ghost would. Something I disliked about the game was that there wasn’t really a clear winner. Our team either beat the game, or we did not, but amongst us, there wasn’t really a winner. I don’t think there necessarily has to be, because it was still enjoyable to play, but if I’m in a competitive mood, this might not be the best game for me to play for that reason. I also disliked how some of the cards are extremely unrelated or up for too much interpretation, because it feels like you’re wasting a ton of time discussing a card that really doesn’t relate to anything, or relates to too many things to the point where you have to just take a wild guess.
I think my friend Annie from back home would really enjoy this game. Growing up, we always played Clue together, specifically the Harry Potter version and we also watched the movie Clue every Halloween. We both really enjoy mysteries and spooky feeling things, so she would enjoy that aspect of this game. However, it would be hard to play with her though because we would basically have to have a decent sized group to play with, which I guess could be another negative to this game.
As for how this game relates to leadership, I feel like the ghost is somewhat the leader because they are guiding the rest of the team. The people who are doing well and are advancing to the next levels also somewhat act as leaders because they have figured out the ghosts way of giving clues and are mostly good at interpreting them, so they can help others interpret. Because of the element of agreeing or disagreeing with other people, it could possibly create conflict between group members, which also is an important part of leadership, since we won’t always agree with leaders or teams that we work with in general. It’s important to learn how to manage this conflict in a constructive way, and to not take things too personally, because at the end of the day, it’s just a game. This game has a lot of team building elements because we need to work together and are trying to help each other through the puzzle. I feel closer to the students that I played this game with, as a result of this activity. We all either were going to win together or lose together, and even though we lost, it was still very fun. I would love the opportunity to play this game again.