Make Me Better Games

Cosmic Encounter – Improve your diplomacy

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Create alliances, negotiate and bluff; in other words, practice diplomacy.  That's what's at the core of Cosmic Encounter, a 3-5 player game that plays in about 1,5 hours.  In this game you'll take on the role of an alien race battling for the supremacy of the galaxy. But don't mistaken this with a tactical game, you won't be a general here: you'll be a diplomat. The main game mechanics can be summarized and simplified as follows: Each player will take on the role an alien race with a special power and have 5 planets on which initially there will only be space ships of his race.  Also, each player will have cards in his hand which he will be able to use, primarily for resolving attacks, but also as special abilities.  The goal of the game is to have 5 colonies (ie. space ships) in other player's planets. To do this, players will take turns at attacking each other's planets.  At the begining of a player's turn, he will draw a card that will tell him which other player he will [Read full post...]

Information and decision-making

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You're walking through a park and see a couple of 7 year old kids in the playground area. One walks up to the other and the latter, without provocation or even saying anything, starts hitting the former. What would you think of this situation?  What would you do?  A normal reaction would be to stop the fight and reprimand the aggressor.  Under a given situation, we make decisions or judgments based on the information we have, but it's important to keep in mind that this information maybe out of context and incomplete or maybe even manipulated or incorrect.  Here's more information on the 7 year olds' case: John has been bullying Matt for the past year every day in school.  Matt has had to make up stories at home to explain the bruises.  Once his self esteem hit rock bottom and the anxiety was unbearable, he took the determination to face the situation: next time he saw John, he'd confront him, he'd show him that from that point on he would stand up for himself.  He might win the [Read full post...]

Neuroplasticity and tabletop games

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Neuroplasticity is the attribute of the brain that enables us to change it; "it refers to how entire brain structures, and the brain itself, can change from experience" What implications does this have?  Well, below is a clear example of how doing something in one way for a long time reinforces this behavior in such a way, that even knowing you want to do it in another way, you will be unable to: But then again, we can change all that with practice (as Destin does in the above video).  But this does only apply to biomechanical activities, also to mental and behavioral aspects of ourselves.  As you might have noticed, the whole idea behind this blog resides on this principle:  I encourage the repetition of exercises, in the form of tabletop games, to improve in certain skills (mainly management and soft skills). If you want to know more of the possibilities of neuroplasticity, here is an astonishing video of a real case:

Castaways – Improve your teamworking skills

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Teamworking in the frame of the prisonner's dilemma.  The game categorizes itself as a "semi cooperative adventure", and that's exactly what it is (and good at it).  Castaways is a 1-4 player game that plays in about 3 hours, but mind you, it's not just a game, it's an adventure. When you finish playing you'll be surely driven to reminisce a bunch of anedotes and discus with the other players on how you could/should have done this or that differently.  This post will be slighter longer than the previous, but I think the game deserves it. So what was that about teamworking, the prisoner's dilemma and semi cooperation?  I'm going to be more generic than in other posts describing the main aspects of the game since this one is more complex.  Here we go: All the players are stranded on an island after a shipwreck and must get rescued.  To be rescued, they must meet a certain criteria when they have finished exploring the whole island, which comprises things such as having built a [Read full post...]