Tag Archives: Free Play

Game of the Week Blog Reflection 12: Free Play

This week we got to choose which game we wanted to play. I chose to play Lasers and Feelings with a few of my classmates. Lasers and Feelings is a quick-play roleplaying game. In the game, you play as a crewmate of the interstellar scout ship Raptor. I ended up playing as the Alien Scientist on the ship who has a love of collecting brains and all things a little gross. My character had a number of three, which means I am in the middle of being good with both feelings and laser taks. My character’s goal was to solve weird space mysteries. I would say the hardest part of the game was picking names for all of our characters. So many of us kept refreshing Fantasy Name Generator trying to find a good name. 

During the game, our crew received a distress signal. Knowing how distress signals play out, we all still decided to investigate the signal. When we got to the ship, we discovered that there were no life forms alive. We searched the ship and ended up finding the bodies of a few of the crew. My character may have stolen the brains of said crewmates in hopes of studying them and adding them to her collection. When searching the armory of the ship, we ended up getting locked in the room by the “captain” of the ship. The “captain” of the ship ended up being an android spy sent to destroy Earth. I ended up watching as two of my crewmates kill the android using laser guns and laser swords. Before leaving the ship, my character looted as much as they could for their next future experiment. Everyone on our crew was able to return safely and ready to continue on our next adventure.

I would recommend this game to anyone who loves role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. This game is almost like a simpler version of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s very fun, easy to learn, and can be played in a short amount of time. Like Dungeons and Dragons, every person needs to cooperate as a group to get the story going. Each of us had a part to play to make the game more interesting. An entire game can be played out in the span of an hour or two. This game was so fun to play and I had a great time watching and collaborating with my classmates as our characters.

Game of the Week: Free Play 2

For this session, I grouped up with a few others to play the popular game “Among Us.” This is a fun video game where you and your crew are in space and your goal is to do tasks around the ship. However, the twist is that there are impostors on the ship who want to kill all the regular crewmates.

Our play session went alright. There were 6 of us in the group, which is enough for a full game (usually with only one person being the impostor), but it got kinda boring with just the 6 of us. We eventually opened the lobby up to the public, which is always an interesting experience in this game. We got a few bad apples that joined, but we kicked them as soon as we were able and played with the people who were cool. Something else that was fun to help with was that two of the people in our group had never played the game, so we had to teach them about it.

Overall, this was a very chill week. I’ve played the game before, and I really enjoy it, but if I had to recommend it to someone, I think I would recommend it to my friend Benny who might enjoy it. The hardest part of the game wasn’t actually hard but more frustrating and funny when one of the new players exposed me as the other impostor. I think leadership ties into this game in the way that leaders still need to do everyday tasks/challenges and they aren’t always exempt because they’re a leader.

Game of the Week: Free Play 1

For this session, we had a week to play whatever game we wanted. For my game, I grouped up with 4 other people and we played a one-shot RPG called “Lasers and Feelings.” This was an RPG about a crew of adventurers on a space ship trying to tackle an evil threat while the captain was healing.

Our play session went pretty well and I had a lot of fun! I’d definitely recommend this to my friend Austin, who loves sci-fi and RPGs. What I loved was that we got to choose our characters and what they looked/acted like. I got to play a what was definitely not a dragonborn, because he had wings! We introduced our characters to each other and figured out how we all knew each other in game. The game went pretty smoothly, but the ending was a tad rushed since we didn’t have enough time to figure out exactly how we had beaten the evil threat but it was defeated nonetheless!

I thought the game was decently easy (after having experience from playing Fiasco). The hardest part was at the beginning, when a couple of us were confused on whether our rolls landed due to them having to be either above or below our lasers or feelings characteristic. This game relates to leadership in the way most RPGs do. It lets you be the person you’ve always wanted to be, and lets you take charge in situations you might not normally be in.

Free Play Week 2 (Honey Heist)

This week we played a game called Honey Heist. Honey Heist is a game where the players play as bears. In this game you have to understand your character and this ties to the leadership trait of knowing ones self. Knowing what your own goals and traits are is important to understand what you need to do to be a good leader. This game does a good job of making this easy to understand because for the bears your goal is to just try to obtain honey without becoming to bearish or a straight up criminal. While goals may vary a little bit more in real life the concept remains the same. But in Honey Heist how do you obtain this honey?

To obtain honey in Honey Heist is in some cases quite difficult. Honey Heist is a roleplaying game where almost every success and failure is decided by a six sided dice. In the game I played I was a Scottish grizzly bear named Scotty o’Mara and I was a retired hacker. The goal for my group was to steal a honey fountain from a mansion across a bridge. While in the end we succeeded my bear was the only one who didn’t make it out and was put in Bear jail. Overall I had a lot of fun playing the game but struggled with several mechanics. The most difficult part of the game was that although we had a clear goal there was no clear path to reach the goal. The plan for the heist was entirely up to the imagination which left a limitless number of options for us to steal the fountain however it did not give us any clear paths to reach the fountain. This mechanic made the game interesting as well because none of the players really had a good idea of what the other players were planning.

If I had to recommend this game to anyone I would probably recommend it to my friend Jacob. Jacob already enjoys the game Dungeons and Dragons and I think they would also enjoy this game because it allows for similar role playing mechanics as well as the chance that comes from rolling the dice. I would also recommend this game to my Mom for the same reasons I would recommend this game to Jacob. Overall I think this game would be a lot of fun to play with a group of friends.

Free Play Week 1 (Incan Gold)

This week we played Incan gold, a game about taking risk in an attempt to obtain treasure hidden in the Incan pyramids. The game addresses risk taking as you are an explorer who while searching for gems and treasure has to also avoid multiple dangers. Risk taking is how this game connects to leadership. In taking risks this game demonstrates the ability for the player to assess risk vs reward and determine whether or not to take certain actions in a similar way that a leader must assess risk and reward when taking certain actions.

The game itself works well with the concept of risk as well as its other mechanics. In this game you are competing against other players to attempt to collect the most gems and at the end the player with the most wins. To earn gems players must venture into the Incan pyramids and face the dangers inside. With multiple players playing this game gems are divided evenly among players in the temple with players having the option to leave early. The first question that many would ask at this point would be why should these players ever leave the temple early. The answer is simple and part of the games mechanics. The dangers of the temple, if the player sees two of the same danger they drop all of their gems and vacate the temple. These mechanics make the game interesting because it pits the players against each other where they will want to risk as much as they can to get ahead of the others so that they do not have to share the gems. I think this mechanics is also what makes the game most difficult because as a player you have to assess whether or not it is worth it to continue to venture into the pyramid or if you will lose out more by continuing forward.

As a risk taking game I think my brother would really enjoy playing this game as he enjoys playing these types of games a lot. Whether he just likes getting really lucky or actually mathematically figuring out the best solution I am unsure but nevertheless I am sure he would enjoy this game.

Honey Heist RPG

Honey Heist is a rpgwhere the players are bears that are trying to pull off a heist to get honey. The complication is that the two stats each character has means that they are only a few rolls away from betraying and abandoning the crew and becoming a criminal full time or going full bear and possibly eating the crew. 

I was very happy with my bear since they were able to balance the ridiculousness of both pure criminality and pure animality. Stealing some lovely honey, but eating it out of a hat. Each of our characters were unique and contributed hilariously to our cause, stealing a honey fountain. Our luck in rolling die meant that none of us went full bear or full criminal.

Working together to infiltrate the gala led to some wonderful displays of leadership, such as an impromptu cover of Wonderwall, a dance with a security guard, car theft, and a beary large brawl. All of this somewhat coordinated since the rpg was focused on being a crew that planned out a heist so we really had to talk it out and work together to reach the clear goal of honey. Reacting to the various conflicts and traps that we came across meant we had to adapt quickly together and still make sure that we did not expose our sticky paws. We were extremely chaotic and utilized it by aiming it at our shared goal, honey.