Category Archives: Assignments

TIME Stories Week 2

This week was the second week of TIME Stories and I don’t think I enjoyed it more than last week. To start the game we had a player who wasn’t in class the previous week, so we had to try to catch him up with what we’ve done, what we are currently doing, and what we’re planning to do; I’m not sure we did that good of a job on that. We then reset our time almost immediately after starting the game and started a new round. We were able to get a lot of what we wanted to do accomplished, but we kept running into dead ends or doing things we definitely didn’t need to be doing, like unlocking certain locations twice because we thought it might lead us somewhere else. I also died this round, because I flipped a card that made me immediately lose one health point which was all I had. I think this game would be much more fun if it was played in one sitting (which is obviously almost impossible for our class) because once we forgot what we had done previously and why the game became a little frustrating.

I think there were two equally difficult things we ran into while playing the game this week, deciding we needed to go to every place to finish the story, and not seeing each other’s items. Starting with going to every place, every time a new place was revealed we decided that we needed to go there to solve the puzzle even though at one point we had all the items we needed to solve it. This leads to the problem of not seeing each other’s items. It turns out one of the pieces we needed to solve the puzzle was slightly hidden within another item in the game. This wouldn’t have been so much of a problem except that the person who had the item didn’t notice the puzzle piece, and because we weren’t looking at each other’s items neither did anyone else. Once we were told to look at that item so we could solve the puzzle we still had an issue, or at least I believe it was an issue. The problem was that because there was only one of each puzzle piece and they needed to be examined really closely, the rest of us not solving it (especially me since I was the furthest away from the items) didn’t entirely know what was going on and how to help. For example, there was one phrase we really needed to know to solve the puzzle, and while I remembered it and considered it might help, I didn’t announce it because from my viewpoint it didn’t look like it would help with the puzzle.

While the leadership topic I discussed last week still applies, I think the fact that we had someone who hadn’t been there the week prior allowed for a unique leadership experience; making sure everyone feels included even if it is their first time coming to a club meeting. This idea is somehting that is sometimes really hard to do since people usually have distinct groups already established. But, I feel that to be an effective leader it is something that needs to be done because without it that person may be confused and less likely to attend future meetings. Unfortunately, I think we did a fairly bad job at this, so it is definitely something I’ll need to improve on in the future. However, doing a bad job allowed me to see how that person was a bit confused and flustered, which led to my noticing that this is something I need to improve on. (I do think this was harder in the game than it would be in other settings because the people that were there last week didn’t completely remember what we had done either).

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: 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.

GOTW #6 Reflection: Voices in My Head

In week 6 we played the game Voices in My Head. This is a strategy-based hidden roles game. In this game, you either play as the prosecutor or one of the voices in Guy (the defendant)’s head. The prosecutor is trying to convince the jury that Guy has robbed a bank, whereas the voices in Guy’s head have their own objectives. Some voices want to get a guilty verdict too, while others want Guy to get an innocent verdict. The only issue is – no one knows which is which. There are two acts, each with four rounds. Each round, the prosecutor would reveal a new piece of evidence. Each piece of evidence has two regions of the brain that can influence the card. The players must push their tokens into the different regions, attempting to have the highest score in the region so that they can be the ones to decide how to resolve the card. The game ends after the two acts are completed, and the verdict is determined based on the number of guilty and innocent tiles on the jury.

               I played this game with the same group I played Fiasco with, which was super fun. It seemed we were all a lot more comfortable playing this game, and everyone got a chance to have their own fun. I played the role of prosecutor, which was the role I had hoped to get. I really liked being able to see the evidence and to choose which pieces to throw at the other players. I often found myself picking the funniest options rather than the most optimal choices. It was different from how I find myself usually playing, but I honestly think I had more fun that way. We all had some good laughs and enjoyed the silliness of each new piece of evidence. I did end up losing, but I wasn’t even mad about it. This is definitely a game I would love to play again.

The hardest part about this game for me was trying to figure out what the other players’ goals were. Figuring out the mechanics and how the game was played was more important during the first half. Even when I got it down, my focus was mostly on having fun with the game rather than winning. I didn’t figure out people’s objectives until near the end. I feel like I would have played much differently if it wasn’t my first time playing this game. So, I feel like the hardest part of this game was born from my inexperience. Usually, I play games a bit more strategically, but this time I played it fairly loosely. I just wanted to have a good time, and I did – despite the fact that I lost.

Voices in My Head shows leadership through the role of the prosecutor as well as through who controls the different regions of Guy’s brain. To take control of the situation, and lead the game in a particular direction, players had to place their tokens in specific regions of the brain. Whoever had the most tokens in a region would be able to respond to the prompt given by the prosecutor. I believe this was a form of leadership, as it often took being persuasive and often aggressive in certain ways to take charge of the outcome. I believe the prosecutor also played a leadership role, as they had to guide the other players through each scenario. They act as game master in a way. They put forward the scenarios which the other players had to face. In particular, I also found myself being the one who was asked questions regarding rulings.

I believe my friends Katie and Xavier would like this game. I’ve been playing board games with them more often, and this seems like the goofy game they would enjoy. I think this game really should be played with a light heart and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. I think these two would fit that bill perfectly.

While I feel like I have shared my opinion on this game throughout this post, I think I could elaborate further on what I liked and didn’t like. I liked the goofiness of the cards, the art, and the game mechanics. I also liked how all the different roles interacted, and how a lot of the actions taken during my session were often a mystery until the final reveal at the end. I didn’t have much I disliked. Perhaps it was just a bit difficult to understand at the beginning. However, I feel like that could be a gripe for any game with complex rules. I liked the group I played with, and I had a good time. What more could you ask for?

GOTW: Two Rooms and a Boom

I had heard of Two Rooms and a Boom before we played it, although I’m not sure where, so I was looking forward to the game despite never playing it before. I think the first couple of rounds were confusing because I wasn’t sure what exactly to do, but once I got the hang of it I enjoyed the game. I also thought it was more fun once different roles were added to the game. Specifically, I got to be the ambassador during the last round and I found that to be a lot of fun, and fulfilling as the previous round I was “kept hostage” in one of the rooms and not allowed to go to the other.

Obviously, the main leadership concept in this game was the leaders themselves. In the early rounds, I think this leader did have more of a traditional leadership role because they mostly had to make the decision alone; however, when the leaders were able to find more people on their team they scarcely made decisions by themselves; this teamwork is a component of leadership as well, so I think this also represents leadership well.

I think being the Ambassador was also a good representation of being a leader. During the game, I was on the blue team and quickly discovered who the President and the Bomb were. This allowed me to share with the president who to watch out for, which was helpful. However, my main task was trying to get the Doctor and the President in the same room. This was really difficult because I had to find a way to communicate with both parties, while not knowing their exact plans. This led to the president and doctor being switched in the same round and the game ended in a tie. This shows that even if you have plans with certain people, you don’t always know what the other is going to do and it may lead to unexpected results.

I think the hardest part of the game was the time limit. Thinking back on it now I know what should’ve been done to win the last game, but in the moment there isn’t enough time to think your decisions through. For example, in the 1 minute round, I had to run down the hallway with 20 seconds left and hope I made it on time to inform people of what was happening and make a decision based on that. Another difficult aspect was who the leader was. During the game I mentioned previously, there was a situation where I had to stay in the room for the blue team to remain leader, because as soon as I left the room the red team took charge. This led to me being forced to stay in the room and not being able to communicate with the Doctor in the other room.