Category Archives: Assignments

Ladies and Gentleman Reflection

This week we played a game in TableTop simulator called “Ladies and Gentleman”, it is a cross between a card and role-playing game. If playing in TableTop simulator the game is already mostly set up, with everything the ladies need on one side of the table and the men on the other side. I played the role of the lady so I can only explain the game from that perspective. On the lady’s side, we run a series of boutique shops and cleverly try to sell and buy nice items so that they can be the best dressed at the ball. After several rounds of visiting different boutique shops and selecting various articles of clothing, jewelry or purses the lady will present her findings to her husband. The husband then decides whether he can afford to pay it or not and tries to make the choice that will benefit the couple the most.

I think the hardest part of the game was strategizing because all the ladies are trying to buy the best things with the end goal of being the best dressed. I had to decide things like do I put the best purse up in my boutique window and hope it distracts the ladies while I go visit another shop or do I put the worst thing in the boutique window so no one comes and I get a discount on my purchases. Sadly, we didn’t get very far into the game before we had to end but from what I witnessed I enjoyed the game very much and would recommend it to my family. It has the potential to be interesting and have funny role-playing once everyone knows how to play and is comfortable in their character.

I think the biggest leadership ties this game has is that it requires strategy, for reasons I mentioned above and because it requires teamwork. Winning the game will be difficult if players cannot communicate effectively and discretely with their partner on the other side of the table. A gentleman signaling to his wife to slow down on the purchases because they are low on funds or to let loose and buy whatever she wants without alerting the other players is key.

What Type of Gamer Am I?

After I took the quiz from Quantic Foundery, I think the result is very accurate. This result of the quiz shows that I have high conflict score, which means more competitive and enjoy games where players can attack each other. I think the reason is that I often play FPS games and Battle Royal games, such as CSGO, APEX, PUBG and so on. I enjoy playing against other players a lot. And it might be the same for me on board games, for example I enjoy playing Incan gold a lot since it can play against with each other. So, I think this high conflict score is quite accurate.

About the Social Manipulation, I think why the score is also higher than others is influenced by the game I always play, too. Because in the game like CSGO, Valorant or Rainbow Six, players need to guess what your opponents will do for this round based on some information. For example, the economic situation on CSGO can determined whether a team could buy guns or not. If players guess their opponents will Eco for this round, which means do not buy good guns for that round to get good economic situation, then players can play more aggressive since they have the adventure on good guns. I think this is the reason of why I enjoy playing psychological mind games and why I get a high score on social manipulation.

About the score on social fun, I also think it is very accurate. Since I do not play board games a lot, which is once per week during the class time, I think the most important thing for me  to play board game is to gain some happiness because I know I am not good at board games. So, I enjoy the game which has simple rules and easy to play with. And this might also be the reason of my low score on needs to win and cooperation, because I just want to have fun during playing board games, so I do not care about the teamwork and win or lose. However, I know these things are very important in all kinds of games. For example, if in the game like CSGO, players do not care about the teamwork, they will have a very low chance to win. I think this is also true for some competitive board games.

For the low score on Aesthetics, I think it is also very accurate because I almost do not care about how beauty the game is, I think a good game can attract more players based on the content itself and the company’s later operation. Personally, I think the aesthetic can make a game being better, but it is not a big adventure.

All in all, I think the quiz has a very high accuracy.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection 8: Ladies & Gentlemen

This week, we played the board game which is called Ladies & Gentlemen. We played this game during the class time online by using tabletop simulator. In this game, every two people will get into a group, one played as the lady and one played as the gentlemen. And the rules for being a lady and being a gentleman are totally different.

During the class time, there were 8 people including me played this game, and I was playing the on gentlemen side. We only got to the week 2 because one of the classmates had the internet issue and because of the complexity of the game. But we had a great time.

I think the hardest point for playing this game is to estimate your partner’s situation and making proper choice for the team. For example, my partner played as lady, and he decided to go to visit a place. However, two other teams also wanted to visit to that place, but only one of them can visit that place. Since I got the coin of 1, which means our group can go first, me and my partner can go to that place and the other two teams cannot, so they wasted this chance. So, I think this is the hardest point, because if you make a bad choice or make a wrong guess, your team will lose for this round.

I think the leadership in this game is to make good decisions. For example, if I did not get the coin of 1 and my partner chose to visit the same place as the other two teams, our team will waste that chance so that we will fall behind in this game. So, I think in a team, the leader should have the ability to make good decisions because good decisions can make the team better.

I think I do not like this game because I think the rule is a little bit complex.

RPG Character Build Reflection

To build an RPG character sheet that described my real-life leadership attributes I used the Dungeon and Dragons template. This was probably one of the more harder assignments for me because I lack experience creating these sheets and didn’t really understand the point system at all. However, I was able to receive and help and advice from two other classmates so hopefully, I’ve done it correctly!

My favorite part of the assignment was the amount of creativity and free reign I had designing my sheet. I enjoyed that I got to rank things like my strengths and personality traits but the thing I most enjoyed was probably the fact that this was an opportunity to brag about all my leadership traits and experiences. Designing your own Character Build is kind of like designing your resume because it’s how you will present yourself in the world! Overall, I think my character sheet is an accurate representation of who I am as both a person and leader.

Buzzfeed LeaderShip Quiz Reflection

For the BuzzFeed assignment, I created a personality quiz that would determine the leadership style that best fits the participant and tells them the corresponding Meeple color. For example, if someone has a democratic leadership style then their results would be the blue meeple. I think all gamers should take a leadership quiz similar to this one because being aware of one’s leadership style can improve everyone’s gaming experience.

I think the hardest part of the assignment was figuring out how to use the quiz software/template and coming up with variable answers so that those who took the quiz didn’t get all the same results. My favorite part of the assignment was definitely receiving everyone’s results and their opinions on what they got. In general, everyone agreed with their colored meeple so my quiz was fairly accurate overall. Something that could be improved upon is increasing the number of questions so that the results are clearer.

Fiasco Playset Reflection

I designed a Fiasco playset (with the help of my father) that was based on the popular Netflix series, the Peaky Blinders. I think the hardest part of the assignment was both the duration of how long it would take to complete and coming up with things like relationships and locations that weren’t too specific or too vague. Creating different six groups of six is harder than you would think. It was very tedious to make sure that none of the relationships or other categories were repetitive and made sense in the overall them of the game.

When creating my own playset I used both the playsets already programmed into TableTopia and other fan-created fiasco sets to give me a sense of the different directions I could guide my game to go. I submitted my assignment in the form of a google doc template but I’m looking forward to finding a way that my family can actually play it. My favorite part was designing something I knew my family would enjoy and could potentially get them hooked on Fiasco. There’s a possibility I may create more playsets in the future because Fiasco is the best game we have played so far in class

Game of the Week: Incan Gold and Can’t Stop

A week or so ago, we played Incan Gold and Can’t Stop in class, and overall, I enjoyed both games. The theme that week was weighing risk vs. reward, and man, did I feel that. For a leader, considering risk vs. reward is an essential skill to learn because the risk impacts the whole group, but then again, so can the reward. Being placed in a position of leadership, one must toe the line very carefully. You might have to be more reserved than you might typically be to protect the group from harm. In a game sense, Incan Gold and Can’t Stop both emulate, risking it all for a sweet reward.

Incan Gold bursts to the seams with an Indiana Jones aesthetic. The premise is that a team of archaeologists/grave robbers are excavating/plundering an Incan temple for all it is worth. Throughout five rounds, the players delve as far as they can go into the temple, picking up emeralds, obsidian shards, gold nuggets, and the occasional artifact while also trying not to trigger any of the traps of the temple. As the players progress into the temple, they leave small amounts of treasure behind, and thus, the game’s strategic elements become apparent. The first person to flee the temple picks up all the leftover treasure. The further into the temple everyone goes, the more treasure is collected overall, but more traps can trigger. When the second type of trap comes up, any player in the temple loses everything they have gained on that round. The question becomes to delve or not to delve? Incan Gold was a lot more fun for me, even though I ultimately lost. My downfall came from me playing too safe. I was often the first to run back before my two companions would stumble upon a huge score. Can’t Stop, on the other hand, was a very different story.

The version of Can’t Stop that we played looked like it had not changed since its initial debut in the 1980s, but what Can’t Stop lacks in an aesthetic flair it makes up in pure strategy. The players roll dice to determine how quickly they climb up the board. A player wins by having three of their markers reach the top of three separate columns. Each round, after a player moves 3 markers, they can choose to stay or roll again. If the player stays, then their tokens advance to the markers, but if they roll again, they risk the chance to bust and lose all progress. After coming off of my complete defeat in Incan Gold, I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for broke. It was this reckless strategy, coupled with lucky dice rolls, that played me in the lead by the time we had to stop playing. Can’t Stop is my grandparents’ speed much more than Incan Gold because it is not bogged down by complication. The simplicity of the gameplay is Can’t Stop’s key to its longevity.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection: Incan Gold and Can’t Stop

This week, we played two games during the class session. They are called Incan Gold and Can’t stop. For the Incan Gold, the whole round has five small rounds, for each small round, players will decide to continue their adventure to gain more golds or quit to make sure they do not lose their golds for this small round. After these five small rounds, the player who owns the most golds win the game. For the Can’t stop, players had to roll four dices and add each two of them up as they want. Players will move their pawns based on the numbers (sum) they get, each number has a column and the player who reaches the top of any three number’s columns will win the game.

During the class session, our group first played the game Incan Gold. I think the hardest point of playing Incan Gold is you need to think whether to take risks to gain more golds or quite to maintain your golds, and you also need to think what other players will do. For example, in the second small round, one of our group members decided to quit when we met the first hurdle, because the rule is if you met the same hurdle twice, you will die and you will lose all the golds you gain during this small round. Me and another player decided to continue until we met the second hurdle, but this is not the same as the first hurdle. So, another group member decided to quit because we already met two different hurdles, and the risk of continuing becomes double. However, I am a person who likes to take risks, so I chose to continue, fortunately I gained 11 more golds in the next scene, since I was the only player left, I got all the 11 golds. However, on the fourth round, I lost all my golds for the round because I took the risks.

For the game Can’t stop, I think the hardest point is also to make a good strategy of taking risks. In this game, there are some short columns like 2 and 12 which only have 3 or 4 steps to win, but 2 and 12 are very difficult to get. There are also some long columns like 6,7, and 8, which need 8,9 or 10 steps to win. So, making a good strategy about the combination of high-risk columns and low-risk columns are very important. One of our group members did a great job on this, he chose the columns of 4, 8, and 12, which included high-risk column (12), low-risk column (8) and the middle-risk column (4), and he won this game during the session.

I think these two games went very well in our group. We all had a great time during the class sessions. As the same of other classmates said, I also think that Incan gold might be a little bit more interesting than Can’t stop since it has a sense adventure but not just count the sum of two dices.

I think the leadership aspects of these two games are the ability to keep calm thought and the courage to take risks. As a leader, you must keep a calm thought when you make choices because your decisions will influence not only you but the people around you. Leaders should always make the choices based on the situation they are in, so it is important to keep calm when you make choices. A leader also needs to have the courage to take risks when it is necessary, because leaders should always take the responsibility of failure.

Game of the Week Blog: Incan Gold and Can’t Stop

This week in class we played two relatively quick games, Incan Gold and Can’t Stop. Incan Gold is a multiplayer card game that is perfect for those that love to take risks and push their luck. To play you shuffle the deck and someone deals by flipping over a card revealing either a trap or treasure. Each player then splits the treasure they gain and then on the count of three everyone decides whether or not they want to push their luck and continue deeper into the temple for more treasure and artifacts or bail out with whatever they had. Can’t Stop is a mixture between a dice and a board game because you roll the dice to move your pawns on the board and the goal is to take over three columns. However, it is also a kind of risky game because if you don’t roll the numbers you need you cannot complete your turn and it is a race between other players.

The hardest part of Incan Gold was trying to maintain a realistic and logical mindset because similar to poker the game becomes addictive really fast and you begin not to carefully weigh out the risk to benefit ratio when playing. One of the players in my group constantly played it safe while the rest of us kept risking our loot in the hopes of gaining more, because of this the safe player ended up winning both of the rounds we played. So I definitely need to work on my strategy for that game! The hardest part of Can’t Stop was trying to be present while playing because I did not like this game at all. It’s basically just a math and chance game with no story or plotline and because it was boring I didn’t care whether I won or lost which is not something you want when playing. I would recommend Incan Gold to everyone and Can’t Stop to maybe my grandparents if I had to.

I think the two biggest leadership aspects in this week’s games would be decisiveness and integrity. For example, In Incan Gold, all the players need to decide at the same time if they are bailing or continuing deeper into the temple. If you cannot demonstrate the ability to make decisions under extreme pressure you cannot be a great leader and you are also not helping maintain the easy playing flow of the game. A clear example of integrity can be found once again in Incan Gold, everyone wants to win and I witnessed players make their decisions based upon what they thought another player was going to do. One player in my group made the decision to bail out because he knew the player who always played it safe was going to do that as well and in doing this he would ensure that no one got the treasures. Some would argue that it was simply strategy but I would argue that it calls your character into question when you would knowingly choose to lose just to stop someone from winning or gaining more from an opportunity than you.

What Type of Gamer Am I?

Overall, I agree with Quantic Foundery’s assessment of my inner gamer. As long as everyone is having fun while also focusing on the game itself, I end up having a blast. The only part of this assessment that differed from my expectations was the limited strategy and discovery. I love building a strategy up in a persona in social deduction games, working with other players to stop some disaster, or trying to build the best dungeon in that sense of the word. I think I scored low on this aspect because I do not enjoy deckbuilding or the likes of Warhammer 40K. The long-term strategy games do not do well at holding my attention. 

On the other hand, short social deduction games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf or Secret Hitler are right up my alley. Whether it be in a TTRPG or a smaller roleplaying game like the ones above, I love bringing a character to life. It is so fun when everyone comes together and adopts a character for the evening. Games like Fiasco are right up my alley for this very purpose.

The aesthetic of a game can further elevate it from good to great. One prominent example of this type of elevation would be the Call of Cthulu roleplaying game set during the Roaring Twenties. Solving occult mysteries while drinking at a speakeasy with the police captain is reminiscent of such a specific period that the aesthetic could not replicate it in any other setting. Looking at the game art can serve as a great way to feel the immersion of whatever environment you find yourself in.  It is another way to understand how the game makers wanted you to feel while playing it.