Tag Archives: Game of the Week

Ultimate Werewolf Reflection

In week 1 of class, we played Ultimate Werewolf. I had previously played the One Night variant of the game and had played Mafia in the past, but playing the longer form of Werewolf was a new experience for me, especially with the size of the group we played with! I believe that we had around 25 people if my memory is correct, so the game ended up taking a very long time to complete. As someone who had only previously played the One Night version, the sheer length of the game surprised me! We were even being timed at only 1-2 minutes per day, which meant that discussions had to be very short. Now, there usually isn’t too much going on in a single night of Werewolf besides the nightly death, so this timer ended up being not too bad to deal with.

For this game, I was assigned the role of Bodyguard. This, from what I came to understand via play, was an EXTREMELY powerful role. I held within my hands an ability which could completely stop the evil team in their tracks, provided I was smart about it. In the beginning of the game, this was a very difficult task. There were so many people and so many unknowns that I was basically shooting in the dark. I decided that the best course of action was to stay quiet and let the more vocal members of the group draw attention to themselves, at which point I could start trying to protect them. After the first couple of days, the “leaders” of the game were firmly established from a Cupid confirmation chain. They stayed vocal and directed most of the discussions. This let me stay protected for a very long time.

Late into the game, the good team became more clear and I was finally able to start getting a couple of saves. That first save started a powerful chain reaction as I was able to prove one of my neighbors as well as myself as good due to nobody dying. We very nearly pulled out a win but a sneaky Wolf Cub death sealed our fate, as it left me with a 2 in 3 shot of picking a correct person to save, which I unfortunately did not get. Pretty much at all points of the game I felt like I was taking risks. I was always choosing between whether to save myself to ensure my power was safe or to take a chance trying to save someone else to prove that they were on the good team.

All in all, I think Werewolf is a game that has a very broad audience. The basic concept is very easy to understand and the mechanics of the game are not very complex besides remembering different character roles. This issue could be solved by giving players reference sheets. One thing that I don’t like about Werewolf is the player elimination aspect. While I didn’t experience it in this game because I made it all the way to the end, I think I would have been very bored sitting on the sidelines for the rest of the game, especially if I got out very early.

T.I.M.E. Stories Week 2 Reflection

This past week we finished playing T.I.M.E Stories in class. For me, this week was not nearly as exciting or enjoyable. Towards the end of the playthrough, it felt annoying that my group simply missed the one or two items that we needed to get to complete the puzzle on our 2nd and 3rd loops. I’m sure this factor was only made worse by way of us having a limited amount of playtime. But on the other hand, I’m fairly certain that the aimless feeling that I had would have still been present with a longer playtime.
I think taking notes on literally everything would’ve helped, but to me that would not have made the game more enjoyable. It probably would’ve helped us figure out the puzzle sooner, since we would’ve known implicitly what locations/items we were missing. That being said, I do think this is a well designed game, but it’s just not for me. I like low barriers to entry on games that I play, and longer games are less enjoyable for me.
Once again, this game provides a great avenue for leadership by way of directly influencing the flow of the game as the Time Captain. Someone could just be the person to put the location cards in the right place, but there are opportunities to take the reins and help guide your group to a successful playthrough with minimum loops.

T.I.M.E. Stories Week 1 Reflection

This past week we played T.I.M.E Stories in class. It was quite a fun game. The story is very intriguing, but I’m unsure of how it will eventually resolve, as I don’t think we’ve gotten very far before the end of class. The gameplay aspect I liked the most was resetting the time. It reminds me of some of my favorite roguelike video games, Risk of Rain 2 and Hades, in that while you lose some of your progress, the most valuable thing carrying over is your learned knowledge of the game. I can’t wait to run it back next week.
The most difficult aspect of playing the game was certainly learning the basics of how to play. There’s many moving parts and when playing it for the first time, it’s very overwhelming. Now having gotten through a full cycle of the game, I’m quite sure that I understand how to play the game properly. An aspect of the game I’m still learning is combat. In that first cycle, I never had to enter into combat, but even at opportunities where I could, from my understanding, I would’ve lost very badly and been killed/knocked out. One aspect I do not like is the skill checks. Every so often a location would have a challenge to beat, but out of the 4 or so challenges that I’ve encountered, my character has not had any skill points in that area being checked. That led to my group and I having to spend even more time at a location that might not even have been worth it.
It’s very easy to see and understand how this game ties into leadership. To start, the game requires someone to be the “Time Captain”, an in-game leader that helps facilitate the game to run smoothly. Next, someone has to keep track of all of the information that’s discovered to make sure that no little detail is left unremembered. A potential outlet for leadership for this game could be role-playing. It’s not required by any means and would have little effect on the overall flow of the game, but someone could lead a group into that.

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.

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.