Tag Archives: Game of the Week

Game of the Week Reflection: Pandemic

Since we are still around COVID-19, Pandemic is a fitting game to play for week two. Board games are pretty simple. You have cards, a board, of course, and other tokens and items the developers pack into the box. Pandemic is no different however, there’s some spice and uniqueness to it. I personally don’t play a lot of board games which is kind of why I decided to take part in this class; try something new and maybe find something new that I enjoy doing. After playing Pandemic, already in the second week of class, I feel confident that board games are my new specialty. 

The hardest part about this game was the cooperative part. Many games are like this, board or not. Working with other people in conjunction with the board itself playing against you is a feat within itself. You and the other players are trying to agree on moves, strategize research station placements, and trying not to let an inanimate object win over you. Your team members aren’t thinking the same way you do and you aren’t thinking the same way they are. This is what makes the game entertaining, not the fancy artistry or the unique pieces, at least to me. What makes it interesting is the cooperative nature which is the core gameplay. This makes leadership a struggle because no one can get off the dance floor and look from above to really see the big picture. There are too many moving parts and a lot of agreement and disagreement that comes from the hardcore players.

I really enjoyed this game even though there were some rough patches. I enjoy games where I need to think strategically and I love them even more if I’m immersed in them, granted if I’m playing them solo. I didn’t like how our team’s minds were clashing together making decisions and moves more difficult to come to an agreement to. Maybe this was from other members of my team knowing what to expect cause they’d played it before or maybe it was because it was the rest of our first times. Overall, the game session went well and I would definitely play this one again with family but not friends, I feel that would get even worse.

Game of the Week Reflection: Ultimate Werewolf

Ultimate Werewolf was the perfect way to start Tabletop Games and Leadership. The hardest part of this game was trust. Everyone had their own role and they were all trying to figure out and accuse those who were their enemies. This in turn caused the students to become overly skeptical and defensive, which is how the game now functions. It’s almost every man for himself situation because you can’t trust anyone else except for yourself. Because of this, trust is the main issue when it comes to an individual win.

This game ties into leadership because the followers blindly trust the leader. What I mean by this is once someone deviates from the main group and votes, others will subconsciously vote for that same person because they now start to follow the majority. This may not be a fair psychological way of going about things, but it is the way how people get voted out. My personal opinion on this is that it can turn the tables if there is one confident leader with devoted followers blindly agreeing with confidence at its core. There are also other leadership factors such as the person who got naturally selected to have a certain card. This can dictate the power the person automatically obtains in the game.

Overall, the session went well but was also a little chippy. There are a lot of moving parts with synergies to different characters and situations that it was difficult to grasp the concept on my first go around. There was a lot of risk in not consciously knowing who you picked and whether or not that person was a positive or negative target in the end. It’s hard to escape this however because this game is all about that risk. There is no definite answer to a multitude of things until it’s nearly too late. This, however, is similar to taking leadership. There is no finite answer to if your leadership will take off and you play that risk knowing that, which makes a good leader if you have the confidence and the consciousness to take on that feat. Logical and critically thinking people such as my uncle for example would like this game not only because of its medieval theme but also because of the thought-provoking actions that occur as well. Overall, I personally enjoyed this game and would definitely take part again.

Pandemic: A Class Reflection

In class today, we had the choice to play Pandemic or Forbidden Island. I have played Pandemic before and am the cousin to Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert. When I arrived, the Pandemic was the game that stood out to me. This is a cooperative game where the team wins together or loses together. Key word: together. At the end of the class, we discussed different areas of leadership like seeing the bigger picture, leading by example, initiating conflict, thinking of all the possible outcomes, encouraging the team, sharing a common goal, and more.


These leadership concepts were very important to the game as they all contribute to how a group, organization, or team functions, hopefully in an effective way. When I play with my family I feel like I have a completely different function on the team than when I played in class. Because of this, I considered how my own experience and leadership impacted the game. I tried to lead by example but I also provided input which hopefully did not seem like I was too controlling. I probably could have improved in encouraging the team as we went but I do think they all did a good job contributing to our efforts.

We were able to play through the game twice and start the third game of Pandemic as well. I had a good feeling about the last game because we were all more comfortable and confident with the game. I felt like this led to more contribution and shared leadership overall. We also all had a better understanding of the process. Unfortunately, we lost the first two games. We lost when we ran out of black disease cubes during the first game. During the second game, we lost when we were no longer able to draw playing cards. This helped us learn the game as well as each other personalities and styles when it came to the cooperative format.

I disliked being the most comfortable with the game to start because I felt like I was overbearing at times, but this can also be helpful for others when they are just learning for the first time (I have been in that situation before). I did like how our teamwork improved every game we played. I also think we each paid attention to ways we could improve our gaming strategy as a whole.

I felt like this connected to the ideas we discussed in the class of how an organization may have either an executive team or a leadership team. The way this difference was described from our instructor’s perspective was intriguing to me. I felt as though our first round was built with more of an executive team or top individuals who took on the most work or ran things with more control. However, I feel like we transitioned to a leadership team as we all got more confident and were able to bounce ideas off of each other.

I like cooperative leadership teams better. In teams with executive boards, a small group of people controlling everything and seemingly doing the most, I either feel like I am not contributing enough or that I am overpowering the opinions of others in the group. By our third game, we had figured out how our personalities worked together to improve our success in the board game Pandemic.

Ultimate Werewolf: A Class Reflection

It is the first week of class and we play Ultimate Werewolf. Coming into this class time I had played Werewolf before, but mostly with extended family. This time was different as some individuals had never played and others were experts by comparison. We had not met before and that was another challenge to overcome as we did not necessarily understand each other’s personalities. In this game, we talked about being the first follower. The first person to start something will get all the credit, but without the first follower, it will go nowhere.

Our game consisted of many different roles including the Werewolves, Wolf Cub, Bodyguard, Minion, Cupid, Sorcerer, and more. I was the minion and was tasked with trying to protect the werewolves. For context, this session had the two linked by cupid voted out first, the bodyguard who became a spokesperson and leader in the group, and a werewolf who latched onto the bodyguard and became the first follower for a lot of the decisions, and some individuals who used logic to make decisions but were killed off anyway.

The bodyguard decided to announce themself early on which could have been either beneficial or detrimental to the game depending on the truth of the statement. There was some logic pointing to him as a werewolf that I quite agreed with, and by being the Minion I knew it would not hurt to vote out a strong player and personality like them. Boy was I wrong! The second I cast my vote for the bodyguard, another individual cast their vote on me. This is the moment I realized I had saved the bodyguard and put them in good standing.

If I had pointed to a werewolf I could have diverted attention and made them look innocent as I got voted off, but instead, I made the bodyguard seem even better if that’s possible. I got voted off as the first follower and then another and then another all cast their votes for me. I was killed off and saved someone else in the process too bad it was not a werewolf.

In the end, the villagers won as a werewolf sacrificed themself for no apparent reason. Another werewolf had been killed off already in the night as someone had used a once-a-game ability. And the last werewolf, the most vocal, got caught in a lie as they mixed up stories they had told. However, throughout the game, I saw leadership in action as people were vocal and others would follow gathering more and more votes until the majority was had and someone was out.

Seeing this leadership and first-follower concept in action was both amazing and scary. It was challenging to figure out how to get the first follower on your side and not be the target of the majority. This is where I struggled and what ultimately led to my demise. The challenging part of the majority decision had voted me out which was good from the perspective of the villagers. However, it could also very well be used negatively as well.

I think this game is one where some may feel more comfortable taking risks when they know the people and personalities they are playing with better. I would recommend Ultimate Werewolf to large groups of people like this class, extended family, or a corridor of students in a resident hall. It shows leadership from different perspectives and is also an interesting bonding experience and get-to-know-you activity that could be utilized more often.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection Week 12: T.I.M.E. Stories Week 2

For the last game in class my group finished the Marcy Case in T.I.M.E. Stories. We started off by exploring the other starting locations we hadn’t been to yet which finished off our first and second loop. We had a lot of events in our second loop that wasted a lot of time so we had to wait for trying to win until the third loop. Even with the large amount of info we had we still made several mistakes in the third loop and barely made it to the end. We also had to guess on the final puzzle but luckily got it right and won the game.

As I mentioned last time T.I.M.E. Stories reflects the importance of teamwork in leadership. My character for example was weak in combat, but was the only one good at searching for items. There was also a few mistakes we made that with better communication might have been avoided. As the only one who had played the first case I knew this series likes to troll the players. So I probably should have been more adamant about not pressing the red button that we had no clue what it would do. The result wasn’t as bad as it probably sounds but it easily could have been avoided.

A large challenge for finishing the game was the lack of clues. We knew for the final puzzle only one of the four options was correct but we only had two clues to solve it. At best the clues eliminated two options but didn’t seem to help narrow down between the final two. With very little time in class to make a decision we couldn’t come to agreement and ended up just guessing correctly. We were lucky to even have the two clues that we did and I couldn’t find any others that we missed. I would have preferred some more hints to piece the solution together.

Game of the Week Blog Reflection Week 12-Free Play

For week 12 I played Carcassonne as my group’s free play game. I had never played this game before, but I really enjoyed it. The hardest part about this game was forming a strategy. It is a pretty simple game, however there was a level of strategy to it. Having never played, I was unsure of what my strategy should be. 

I think this game could be tied to leadership because you have to make decisions on where to put your pieces. A good leader I believe is someone who can form a plan, make decisions, and execute their idea. I think my family would like to play this game because it is played pretty quickly and casually. My brother especially would like this game because it is quick, but still strategic and fun. 

The first time we played I did really well and came in second place which I was happy about considering two out of the four of us playing had played before. However, the second game I tried a new strategy and lost by a lot. We all had a lot of fun making our towns and trying to block others. I liked the game a lot and plan to play again! There is nothing about it that I would change. 

Game of the Week Blog Reflection Week 11- T.I.M.E. Stories Week 1

In class we played the game T.I.M.E.. Some people played the game two weeks in a row, but I chose to only play it the first week. For me the hardest part was understanding the rules. I was very confused by the rules to the point that I couldn’t even focus on the mystery aspect. I love solving mysteries, however while playing this game I was too focused on the rules to pay attention to all of the clues. 

We tied this game to leadership with our discussion about does leadership ever end and can you win at leadership. I think my friend Spencer would like to play this game because he likes role playing games and thinking strategically. 

Everyone I played with chose not to save for week 2 of this game, mainly because we were all confused. We all did start to get into it when we started moving rooms. The one thing I did like about this game was moving to different locations and being able to unlock new maps. However, I did not like how confusing the rules were and how the rules took away from me being able to solve the mystery.   

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 10: Ladies & Gentlemen

This week we played Ladies & Gentlemen during class, where I played as a lady. My goal was to buy clothing in order to score the most points, however I had to rely on my team member playing as a gentlemen to pay for all the clothes. Since our game only had 3 teams instead of 4 we managed to get through every round and have higher scores. In the end I ended up losing by only 2 points, which easily could have been a tie with just one $100 more to buy one last item. Its also interesting to note that I didn’t pay much attention to how the gentlemen side was played and switching teams would likely feel like I was playing an entirely different game.

The most difficult aspect of the game was the limited communication with your teammate. Without knowing how much money my partner had it was difficult to know which clothing I should be picking out to buy each day. I also had to be careful about what clothing I would hand to him. I couldn’t specifically say which cards were the most important to buy so I had to make assumptions about which he would pick anytime I wanted to hand over more than one card. This made me hesitant to try more complicated strategies, such as picking clothing I knew the other ladies wanted, because I wouldn’t be able to communicate to not actually buy those clothes.

Having to rely on my partner during the game reflects the importance of teamwork in leadership. One person can’t do everything so you have to trust others to help. My teammate’s role was similar to what a treasurer in a club might do, manage how the club spends it’s money. The clothing I was picking out to buy would be like scheduling events for the club in this comparison. Even as a leader all of these responsibilities would be too much for just one person. If these roles are split between different people on a team however their chance of success is much higher.