Category Archives: Games

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: 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.

Week one reflection: Ultimate Wolf

This game was a fun introduction game to the class. This game is similar to among us where there are 3 imposters, and the rest are villagers. The session we played in class was really fun and filled with people laughing with one another. While this was happening people was being called out for them being suspicious. This one moment in the session one of the wolfs was cursed where they were not able to speak that round. While this happened everyone was saying speak if you are not suspicious. So he was voted to be eliminated because of not speaking.

These are the time’s where the game can be unfair and funny at the same time, which makes it more interesting. For the game though that makes it more difficult is the fact of its nearly impossible to say that one person is a wolf or villager. Because their are no actions on the part of the wolves and no action of the villagers you cant be certain of who’s who. I would say this would be a big flaw because it would be very easy for the wolves to kill the villagers and get away from being voted by just agreeing with the majority and not speak up for anyone.

This has some ties to leadership in the fact of each time the “day” cycle would happen their was one person that would be kind of the voice for the group. This person would take on the role of the leader for that day. It would change some from day to day and everyone would listen. I know for me and two others what we did was listen to someone that said the first person that votes someone out was the guilty one so we would all go by this role. This person took on a leadership method and few others thought this sounded reasonable and joined him in it. But in all fairness this was a fun game that I believed everyone in class had a great time with and would recommend playing with a group of friends. Because it would be chaotic and people yelling at one another.

T.I.M.E Stories Reflection – Week 2

On April 20th our class had a choice to either dive deeper into the adventures of T.I.M.E Stories or to participate in free play. Although my group and I encountered many struggles during our first session the week before, we chose to challenge ourselves and continue playing T.I.M.E Stories. The scenario we played was the Asylum, and at the beginning of the round we had the opportunity to choose which character we would be playing with. None of us were able to see each character’s conditions and characteristics before choosing them, but after failing our mission once we were able to choose a different character to play with if we weren’t satisfied with our current conditions. The characters we used for the second round were: Madeleine – Anxiety attacks (me), Marie – Erotomania, Edith – Cannibalism, and Felix – Paranoia. I found this to be a very good combination of characters, especially during combat. During this game our party explored multiple rooms and fought some monsters while trying to find hints and leads on how to complete our mission. During the second round we only visited the rooms where we knew there would be items and passages that we needed to get in order to access other areas. Since we took a lot of notes on the previous round, this was not an issue. 

The hardest part about playing this game was to use all the information we gathered to solve the pentacles puzzle. Even though we took notes on what we deemed important, our group had a hard time figuring out what was missing. This might have happened because while we took notes on a lot of things, we failed to notice the smaller details that ended up being the key to solving the puzzle. This was definitely the longest and most complex game that we have played so far, however it was also the most fun and challenging. Being able to explore on our own accord and slowly putting the pieces of the story together was great. We had a good dynamic and we had fun trying to take different paths than the ones we had used before. 

This game ties into leadership in ways that the other games we played didn’t as much. Because there are many different mechanics and rules in T.I.M.E stories, we needed everyone to be attentive and for communication to be clear and effective. Because of that, each of us took on a leadership role and made sure that the aspect of the game that we were focusing on was taken care of. Note taking, collecting items, choosing the best paths for our group, strategizing which characters would be better together were some of the aspects that were divided between us, and this helped us work together as a well organized team. After playing this game I believe that my family would enjoy playing together because it takes a while and it is very engaging. I think that it could definitely become a regular part of game nights since there are many different scenarios. 

Game of the Week Blog Reflection (For Class on 4/21/2022): T.I.M.E Stories Part 2

During our last meeting, my group from the prior week got together to finish our game of T.I.M.E. Stories. T.I.M.E. Stories is a cooperative card-based game that requires the players to travel throughout time to uncover and prevent faults in time itself. Your team works together by possessing the bodies of people present at the time and location in question and using their abilities to investigate the area and find the source of the fault. To do this, your team will have to spend Temporal Units, a resource that determines how long your team can remain in that time. Once it runs out, you will be forced to start over, only keeping certain cards and the knowledge you gained during your first “loop”. For this session, our team started on our second of these loops, and used the knowledge we gained from our previous loop to try and locate the source of the fault.

Over the course of this second session, I would say that the most difficult thing that we ran into would be the final puzzle we had to solve before we could enter the last area of the game. Without spoiling the puzzle itself, the main difficulty of this puzzle came from the multiple layers that were involved in it. Our group had to gain knowledge from several, seemingly unrelated clues spread throughout the entirety of the scenario, before finally reaching a specific location. Once at that location, our group had to use all of these clues to finally piece together the solution to the puzzle so that we could advance and complete the story. While this puzzle was certainly difficult, it was very satisfying to piece it all together, and was only possible because our group was working together and combining our knowledge of everything we had seen up until that point. 

However, what could this particular puzzle teach us about leadership? For one thing, our group was only able to finally reach the solution to the puzzle by combining all of our viewpoints and our ideas of what the various pieces of the puzzle could be referring to. Not one of us knew the entire solution, even with all of the clues, and we needed to combine our knowledge and logic to reach the solution. Similarly, a leader could not possibly succeed on their own, they need to work together with their team in order to reach  their goal. Every member’s viewpoint and skills are just as important to the team as any others, a fact that a good leader must always remember if they want to lead their team to success.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed my time with T.I.M.E. Stories. I was a bit uncertain of just how much I would enjoy it after running into issues with the rules during the prior week, but now that our team was more certain of what we were doing, it was a lot of fun! Piecing together that last puzzle was certainly the greatest highlight of our time with the game, and the journey to finally reach that solution featured a lot of interesting scenarios and discoveries that kept us glued to the game. I would definitely be interested in trying out the second story in the T.I.M.E. Stories series just to see if it has any puzzles similar to this one, along with whatever scenarios it might involve.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection (For Class on 4/14/2022): T.I.M.E Stories

In our most recent meeting, our class met to start playing T.I.M.E. Stories, a cooperative, card-based game that sees a team of player’s traveling to a specific point in time to uncover and prevent a fault in time itself. You and your teammates will be placed into the bodies of people present at that time and location, each of which will have their own specialties and limitations that affect how the team performs. Bear in mind though that every action you take to investigate the area, interacting with cards, traveling to new locations, completing tests and participating in combat, will require you to spend Temporal Units, a shared resource that determines how long you can remain in this time. The base cards at the start of the game will inform you just how many cards Temporal Units your team begins with, and reaching zero Temporal Units will force you to flip over a failure card before resetting the game and starting over. However not all items will be reset if this happens, and your own knowledge of the events can be kept. 

However, the most difficult part of playing this game for our team was not any of these mechanics specifically, but rather the rules of the game itself. T.I.M.E. Stories is a very complex board game, with a lot of various moving parts that make it quite intimidating for first-time players such as ourselves, and the rule itself does not do a good job of explaining things. There were multiple times while we were playing where we were uncertain of how something functioned, or of how a particular mechanic worked. The rule was unfortunately not very helpful on this mark, it feels poorly organized, and some things that you would expect to be explained in the rulebook are actually only explained on cards, meaning that you won’t actually be able to fully understand how the game plays until you start playing it yourself.

With this in mind though, what does T.I.M.E. Stories have to do with leadership? Personally, I believe that one of T.I.M.E Stories best contributions to leadership is its emphasis on teamwork. Given that Temporal Units are in such short supply, the players are heavily encouraged to strategize before deciding anything, determining which team members should interact with which cards. Sharing information is also critical if the players hope to advance through the game, as clues acquired at one location are possibly required to complete tasks later on. Similarly, if a leader hopes to accomplish any of their team’s goals, they need to ensure that their team members are working together and cooperating effectively. If a team does not work well together, progress on whatever project or goal they may be working towards will slow to halt, so a leader must ensure that their team members compliment each other.

Overall, I do think I had fun with T.I.M.E. Stories, though the issues that we ran into with the rules certainly did make it more stressful than I expected it to be at times. Now that our team has a better understanding of the rules and how they fit together, I would like to see if we could make more progress next week, as we saved our game at the end of our first “run”. I would also be interested in trying out some of the other Stories that have been created for the game, as one group in particular was actually playing the second Story, and it appeared to function very differently from the Story that our group was playing.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection (For Class on 4/7/2022): Ladies and Gentlemen

During this past Thursday, our class got together to play Ladies and Gentlemen, a cooperative board game where players are split into teams of two, a Lady and a Gentleman, who each have very different roles in the game. The Ladies are playing a card drafting game as they attempt to set up boutiques and create the best outfit for the upcoming ball. Meanwhile, the Gentlemen are playing a dexterity game as they race each other to try and acquire stocks in goods to sell or fulfill contracts. Once both the Ladies and Gentlemen have completed their tasks, the Ladies then pass over the garments and accessories that they picked out to buy during the day for the Gentle to either pay for, pay a much smaller amount to put them on hold until they can acquire more money, or discard them.

I personally played as a Gentleman during our session, though I could tell just from observing the other side of the table that the Ladies had a much more complex side of the game. During the entire time they were drafting their boutiques, shopping for their outfits and choosing which ones they wanted to ask their Gentleman to pay for, they had to consider how many elegance points these pieces had, whether they had a piece of that kind already, and whether they had too many designers or not. With all of those things that have to be considered at any given time, I would certainly say that drafting and choosing what cards to place in their boutique is the hardest part of this game, both due to the sheer amount of things that have to be considered for it to be accomplished successfully, and for the fact that all of that effort may end up being wasted if their Gentleman just simply wasn’t able to make enough money to pay for it. This difficulty in planning and drafting is only exasperated by the blind nature of the game, as Gentlemen are not allowed to share just how much money they have with their Lady, and Ladies are not allowed to share what clothes they are planning on trying to buy with their Gentleman until they are ready to pass them over.

However, while this planning may be the most difficult aspect of the game, it may also be an excellent window into what Ladies and Gentlemen can teach us about leadership. For one thing, Ladies and Gentlemen requires the Lady players to be able to plan out their turns without knowing exactly what resources they will have available to them, and to possibly make contingency plans by grabbing extra articles of clothing and accessories. Similarly, unexpected issues or shortages of resources may occur when working on a project, and a good leader will need to be able to plan for these possibilities. This could include contingency plans to work around those issues and shortages, or gathering more resources ahead of time to work around any shortages that may come up. Either way, a leader and their team creating plans like these ahead of time will help mitigate any issues that come up during whatever project they may be dealing with.

Overall, I very much enjoyed playing Ladies and Gentlemen as a Gentleman. The game can be quite tense if you struggle to find resources you need for contracts or if another Gentleman manages to fulfill a contract first and take your bonus. From everything I saw, the Ladies half of the game may be even more tense, and if given the opportunity I would be very interested in playing Ladies and Gentlemen again just so I can see what that  half of the game feels like to play in comparison to the Gentleman’s half. However, even if I wasn’t able to attempt the game’s other set of rules, I would still most certainly be willing to play the game again to experience the chaos of a fake stock market.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection (For Class on 3/10/2022): Two Rooms and a Boom

Very recently, our class got together to play Two Rooms and a Boom and discuss just what it has to do with Leadership. Two Rooms and a Boom is a hidden role game where the players are split into two teams, the red team and the blue team, based upon the role card they were dealt. The players are then divided between two rooms, and must try their best to achieve their goals by trading “hostages” after each timed round. The blue team, along with whatever other role cards are dealt, has the President card, and the red team has the Bomber card. The blue team must try to ensure that the President is not in the same room as the Bomber by the end of the game, while the red team must ensure that the Bomber and President are in the same room. Alongside these basic roles are several advanced roles, that either change how you interact with the other players, grant new abilities, or even place the player on the grey team with their own, unique win condition. By sharing either your full role or just the color of your card with other players, you can begin to gather information and help your team manipulate the rooms to their advantage.

However, it was many of these new abilities and restrictions that I believe were the most difficult part of the game to deal with. For instance, several of the restrictive roles either made it very difficult to interact with other players and gather information. For instance, the Mime rendered you completely unable to speak, and the Blind requires you to keep your eyes closed so long as the card is in your possession. The Mime makes the game far more difficult as carrying on a conversation and gathering information now requires an effective means of communication without words, which not everyone may be able to perform well or understand. The Blind is likely the most restrictive, as they can no longer view other player’s cards at all and must simply make a judgment on whether they trust what they are told or not. While these certainly don’t make it impossible to gather the required information, they definitely make it far more difficult, and the Blind especially requires the other players be willing to work alongside this player and aid them as they travel between the rooms and gather their own information. 

While these roles create a very large source of difficulty, I feel that they may also be the most important glimpse into an aspect of leadership. These roles, by greatly restricting the abilities of the player or forcing them to be something akin to shy, could represent different disabilities or walks of life, with the Blind likely being the most clear representation of this idea. As such, it is important to remember that while these people might have different needs and abilities, they are still very much people, and can still be the deciding factor in whether a team wins or loses. Similarly, Leaders need to remember that disadvantaged people are still people, and can provide just as much if not more to a team they are placed on as any other person. While they may need some aid in some aspects, there is no reason that they should ever be treated as lessor, and it is the job of a leader to ensure that this is the case. 

Beyond all of this though, I certainly did have a lot of fun with Two Rooms and a Boom. The game can be quite chaotic, and that chaos can be quite enjoyable if its own thanks to your own social skills or even luck that allowed it to happen. Even when the game isn’t chaotic though, being able to use your social skills to both work with your team and manipulate the other team to ensure that events play out as you want them to can be quite entertaining, especially when everything falls into place. With this in mind, I would very much like to play this game again at some point, perhaps in hopes of getting different than I did during this session or just simply to have fun creating chaos with friends.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection (For Class on 3/3/2022): Mental Blocks

During this past week, our class got together to play two games, Mental Blocks and Survive! Escape from Atlantis. Each of us were allowed to choose which game we wanted to play, with the option to even play both of them if we had enough time. Personally, I chose to play Mental Blocks, a cooperative puzzle game where the players attempt to build a specific shape using a series of foam blocks and each player’s clue card within the allotted time. However, each player is only allowed to look at their own individual clue, and each clue sees the target object from a different perspective without stating what that perspective is. It is this particular aspect of the game that I believe makes it so difficult, as if everyone is attempting to create their own individual piece of the puzzle, then they will rarely match the solution unless the players discuss what their perspective depicts and determine specifically which perspective each player holds. However, this was often easier said than done, as the time limit causes most people to immediately begin trying to build their particular perspective, rather than taking a moment to discuss. 

As for the gameplay session itself, our group played Mental Blocks several times, but only managed to actually succeed once or twice. During our first game, we actually played without the time limit and used restrictions that limited what blocks players could move or how they could communicate, and as a result were able to successfully complete our first puzzle. For all of the following puzzles though, we chose to use the time limit, and from there winning became far harder as we simply could not establish whose perspective was which and began to argue over what our cards depicted, building and rebuilding the same incorrect shapes rather than finding the correct one.

Despite these losses, I still feel that we can learn something about Leadership from Mental Blocks. For instance, most of our losses in the game could be attributed to our tendency to build our own perspective first before consulting anyone else. Similarly, in a leadership or group situation, if multiple people in the group have their own, conflicting goals, then the group as a whole may struggle to make any progress at all. In situations like this, the group will only be able to recover if the leader is able to step up and force a compromise of some sort, where both parties gain some, but not all, of what they wanted. This also applied in our games of Mental Blocks, as at least one player was required to set aside their own clue and attempt to parse what everyone else’s clues depicted instead. 

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing Mental Blocks, even if we were only able to succeed once or twice over the many puzzles we attempted. Attempting to parse together various clues while struggling with whatever restriction you receive is quite enjoyable, and as a side goal while playing you can also try to determine what everyone else’s restrictions are. I would very much be interested in playing the game again at some point, perhaps trying to determine what everyone’s perspective is depicting rather than building my own to see if that helps us succeed at all.