This week we do not have an assigned game to play, and our table selected CodeNames Game to play. I think the hardest part of this game is understanding the rules. None of the people at our table played this game before so we have no idea what we should do. I think it may be helpful if we read the rulebook before coming to class as we did for all the other games played in this class. Since we didn’t fully understand the rules, we came up with some kinds of house rules of our own, and that was my favorite part of the session. I enjoyed our own rule as it was simple and easy to follow, and surprisingly it didn’t make the game boring.

I think many skills are tied to this game, and two of the most important skills are memorizing and analyzing. It is necessary to remember all the hints that are given to you and analyze them every round to figure out which words are yours. I think my cousin Xun would enjoy playing this game because he is good at remembering the details and relating words to words. When he was learning English, he tried to remember words under the same categories or with similar meanings.

The only thing I disliked about this game was the complexity of the rules as I mentioned above. I think the session went very well after we figured out our own rules and started playing one or two rounds of the game. This game also helped me to learn some new words that I have never seen before, so I think it may be helpful for people who want to learn English or memorize words.

Game name: What Do You Mean
Number of players: 4-7
Time length: 2 to 4 minutes depending on players

How to play:

One person has to think of a word or a phrase without telling it to the group, like homework, or listening to music. All players have to stand in a line, and the first person has to be the person with the word in mind. The method used to pass on the word is by making actions and only the first person behind you is allowed to see your actions, BUT same actions are not allowed, which means players can’t copy the actions from the players they see. All players should start by closing their eyes to prevent any cheating tings, and tap on the person behind you when you are ready to show them your actions. For example, if I am the second person and the first person has shown me the actions, and I am ready to show my actions to the third person I can tap on his/her shoulder and then do whatever I need to do.

When the game starts, no one is allowed to say anything until the last person guesses and says a word, which means the game has ended. And depending on whether the last person guesses correctly or not, the game can be determined as win or lose.

One learning outcome players should gain after playing the game is improving their memorization skills because they need to remember the actions they see, and they are also expected to brainstorm when they see other people’s actions and think about their own. The last learning outcome is practicing critical thinking skills because players have to process the actions they see and catch the most identical things and relate them to one or more objects.

Examples

If the first person wants other players to guess “water”, then drinking water from a water fountain may be a good idea to act out.

If the word is “smart phone”, the action of calling someone or playing mobile games may be some good ideas to use.

The game we played this week is called Two Rooms & A Boom, and as many people mentioned during class, this game is very similar to the Werewolf. The hardest part of this game was to understand and remember what the roles are and what they can do. There was one thing that makes this game even harder: this game was about hiding or lying about the roles. Therefore, it is difficult to ask other players what the roles can do. For example, I forgot what “Hot Potato” can do when we were playing, so I struggled a little and then decided to ask someone what it was.

Many leadership skills were applied in this game, but the most important one was how to communicate with other people to get useful information. Players had to know how to exchange information so that they could receive the most benefits, but at the same time, they needed to keep their secrets as well. For example, the “boom” had to consider whether revealing the role to the other red teammates is a good idea because the blue spy is also on the red team. Since this game is very similar to the Werewolf, I think my friend named Kath would enjoy playing this, as I mentioned in the game reflection for the Werewolf, Kath was on the team for the Debate Competition and she likes to argue with people with logic.

We started the session with some explanations of the rules and the roles. I think it would be helpful to have a list of the roles and what they can do, so we can take a look before class and even during the game. I like to play this game because we can play a couple of rounds with different roles as the time of playing this game is not very long. The part that I dislike about this game is I have to talk to other people individually sometimes to exchange information but I may not know these people. However, I think this is one of the most interesting sessions in this class because we can play different roles in one class period.

The game we played this week was Ladies & Gentlemen, and according to the title, we know this game usually has two types of roles: ladies and gentlemen. There are different tasks to do depending on the roles, and the rules for each role are different depending on whether you choose to be a lady or a gentleman. This game is separated into three time spots: morning, afternoon, and evening. In the mornings, the ladies decide which stores they want to go to, and the gentlemen need to grab the goods they need from the market. In the afternoons, the ladies start shopping in the store they selected in the morning and decide what they want to buy, and the gentlemen need to either sell their goods or complete contracts for money. When the evenings come, everyone goes home and the ladies show the things they picked, and the gentlemen need to decide whether they want to buy them or if they have enough money to buy them.

As for leadership, some people acted as leaders on both sides and even they may not have noticed that. This game requires both sides to do actions at the same time so it is necessary to communicate during the game. Moreover, the leader can also push other people to move forward as sometimes the ladies may need a long time to decide what things they want to buy, like me in this game. I think my friend named Lily would enjoy this game when playing as a lady because she loves shopping, but she may make the whole process very slow because it can take her forever to decide what she wants.

I think the session went very well, and this is a game that can help people to ice break a little bit because the table is so long, so you have to talk to the people beside you if you need something from the other side of the table. I like being a lady and I feel very chill because all I need to do is shopping. I don’t really like how the gentlemen play because that is a little aggressive for me and I may end up with nothing valuable every day.

The game we played this week was Survive Escape From Atlantis, and the hardest part for me was to escape from the monsters, especially the Sea Serpent. The Sea Serpent can destroy the ship and kill everyone on the ship when it is on the same sea space with an occupied ship. The rules for this game were easy to understand, but I was a little confused on how to use the back of the tiles because some of them had to be used immediately, in your own turn, or outside your turn. Everyone in the group also had trouble remembering what all the cards meant, so each one of us had to take a look at the instructions every time when we flipped one tile. 

This game is tied to leadership because it teaches people how to negotiate with other people and how to change your enemies to friends. It is very important for leaders to negotiate with other people, maybe not their enemies, but they probably need to negotiate with people who do not agree with them or don’t want to listen to them. 

I think everyone would enjoy playing this game, especially if they are playing it with someone they know of. I think this game can be very intense or very relaxing depending on the players. For example, when I played it in my group my goal was not to win after three of my people were out of the game on the same ship. Therefore, I was only going after the person who took my three people out of the game for revenge, and I even helped some other players. 

This game is one of my favorite games from this class, and one of the best playing experiences from this class too. I really like how people can play this game in a very fun and chill way even though this game should be a little intense. I also like the idea that the back of the tile is also useful and it has different meanings to the game, but at the same time, these meanings are difficult to remember and to understand when I started to play. 

The game we played this week was Fiasco part 1, and we started by rolling dice and setting up some necessary elements, like locations, objects, and characters’ relationships. While we were setting up the elements, we also had to write them down on index cards. There was one more card for each person to write down some other detailed information and goals. After setting up everything, we moved on to Act One and Act Two. The steps in these two acts were the same: each player had to start or end a scene in two rounds. If a player decides to start a scene, then this player can set up the scene and other players can decide if the scene is going to end good or bad. But if a player decides to end a scene, then other players can set up the scene for this player and he/she can decide if the scene is going to end good or bad.

The hardest part of this game for me was to understand the rules and things I needed to do. I was very confused while reading the rules and during the setup sections. The whole process of rolling the dice and selecting only the numbers that appeared to be set up was a little confusing. However, after seeing how other players did and trying once on my own, it became more reasonable. I think this game taught me to think from other people’s perspectives, and it is a very important skill of leadership. Leaders usually have to consider everyone’s thoughts and ideas before making decisions so that their final decisions are comprehensive. Therefore, it is very important for leaders to understand why some people have these thoughts and why others think in another way.

I think my friend Landis would enjoy playing the game because he loves to come up with very interesting stories. He is also very creative, so his stories may be very intriguing and I think he can also help other players to come up with some great scenes when they run out of ideas. I really like this game when I let other players set up the scene for me because other players usually have some ideas that I never thought of, and I am very interested to hear these ideas and maybe add a little of my ideas during the acting part. The part I don’t like about this game is sometimes it is too hard to end the scene with a bad ending, especially during the first 1 and 2 rounds, and that is another reason why I want other people to set up the scene so that I can choose how to end.

The game we played this week was Mysterium, and the hardest part of this game was trying to understand why the ghost, the person behind the board, gave you these cards. I played a very similar game before with my friends, and that was easier because I knew what my friends were thinking about. However, this is my first time playing this type of game with my classmates who I never talked to before, so it took me a long time to figure out what the ghost was thinking.

There were two leadership concepts tied into this game: comprehensive thinking and paying attention to details. In this game, all players had to think comprehensively so that no component was left out, and details were very important in this game too. For example, one of the characters in this game is a chef with a chef cap, and there is a card that has a fork and a knife. Therefore, if the players paid attention to the details on this card then they may be able to guess the character they get is the chief.

I think all people who like reasoning and psychology would like this game because the most important strategy of this game is to analyze the ghost’s mind and thoughts and make your decisions accordingly. I think someone who learns psychology would be really good at this game and also enjoy playing it.

Some parts of the game were already set up before the class started, and some parts had to be set up depending on the number of people playing the game. When all the setup processes were done, we started our first round and the ghost gave different cards to everyone. Then we made our actions and got some feedback from the ghost, and the first couple of 2 or 3 rounds all of us didn’t get anything right. And when the ghost first nodded meaning someone was right about their answers, we were so happy! This is also the part I like about this game, I saw and felt teamwork, and everyone in the group was trying to help each other to figure out and provide thoughts on what they may want to consider. The part I disliked about this game was the sand clock did not make any sound, therefore, when we were focused on understanding the cards none of us would pay attention to the sand clock. I would suggest bringing some alarms when playing this game so that nobody would ever ignore and forget the time limit. But overall, this is one of the games I like the most in this class.

I played two games this week, and they were Pandemic and Forbidden Island. But in this blog, I am going to focus on Forbidden Island. The hardest part about this game is to think ahead and decide what you want to do. Forbidden Island is a team game where if one person dies the game is over, so when I was playing this game I was very careful with all the steps I had to make which took me a lot of time to think through. However, the time for us to play was very limited so I was also worried that our group would not be able to finish in time.

As for leadership concepts, I think a leader in this game is very important because this is a 4-player game and people’s thoughts are usually not the same which could be a potential problem in this game. But if there is a leader that can lead the group to make some decisions when the group struggles, it can really help the game to process better. My friend Cam would enjoy playing this game because he likes to think before he makes any decisions. He is also good at critical thinking which is a very necessary skill to have when playing this game.

Our group started playing Forbidden Island before any other groups, and we finished in around 30 minutes which I was not expecting to be that quick. Then we started to play Pandemic and that game lasted till the end of our class. The part I loved the most was how we finished the game, Forbidden Island, so quickly which made the second game, Pandemic, seem to be “so” long! There was nothing in this session that I didn’t like, and I think it was fun and enjoyable because it was not an intense game.