Adventures of a tribal dancer...: cooperative games

Showing posts with label cooperative games. Show all posts

A MARVEL-ours afternoon gaming with littles

by Shay Moore The TribalDancer Thursday, August 12, 2021

A tale of adapting a game for its audience.

My little sister is in town and we got to spend a couple hours together with her two young boys at our new house we’re moving into. Right now most of the games are in boxes, and there are mounds of them in the living room. The boys—who are 4 and 6–saw the pile of games and were astounded. I offered to open some boxes and see if I could find a box with games good for their age. They haven’t played much more than Monopoly in their house, my sister told me (I’m gonna fix that!).

I opened the first box, not knowing what was inside… They gasped and grabbed at Marvel Legendary that was right on top. Oops. I tried to explain it wasn’t a great game for them just now, but they would brook no refusal. So I started by pulling out cards to let them look at them, accepting they would make a total mess of our carefully organized box (filled with many expansions, so very full, and very reliant on the dividers. That went out the window immediately.)

“I WANNA BE SPIDER-MAN!”

“Well, that’s not quite how it works”, I stumbled.

“OOOOH WOLVERINE! I’m Wolverine!”

I hemmed and hawed, trying to guide them to a different game, but it was a losing battle. So then I decided to embrace the challenge. I excitedly told them they are recruiters for SHIELD, and their job is to assemble a whole TEAM of heroes to battle the villains (so far, a light description of the game). You don’t play any ONE character, you get the PLAY THEM ALL!

I explained the “scratches” were like attack points (one brother kinda gets this, he is JUST getting into the edges of Pokemon), and the stars were like “money for recruiting”. I made up a simple list of rules on the fly about what they could do on their turn, and then I played game master, flipping up a random enemy for them to battle, complete with loud BAMS and BOOMS when they defeated an enemy. I impressed upon them that they had to work together—their first co-op game, awwww!—and they would pool resources to help defeat the villains. They did a great job with that.

As they got more comfortable, and the older one started stopping to read the additional text on the bottom, I introduced a few new rules. Just simple ones that made it feel like the game was getting more complex and the villains more determined to beat them. At the end of every game, they begged for another game. I would rotate a market of heroes for them to recruit, and the villain pile they were trying to get through, keeping the game fresh.

So basically I made up some rules on the fly that made it accessible for kids their age and experience level. And they rocked it! Sure, the youngest was mostly interested in accumulating wealth, and his older brother was doing most of the fighting, but they were both grinning from ear to ear, practicing counting and addition and multiplication. The older brother was starting to ask keen questions about iconography. I feel confident if given a little time with him one on one, I could have had him playing the full rule set.

In the end, they made me promise when they are in town again that we’ll play it again. “Sure buddy. We have 500 games, though. So maybe next time you will want to play something else.” But I know next time when they ask to play it again (and I am betting they will), we can build toward the full rule set and get them smashing the villains in no time. And in the meantime, I am sending my sister my Geeklists geared toward mixed age family fun.

Have you ever created new rules or modified them for the age or ability of the players? What is a fun memory you have of this for you?

board games cooperative games gaming

GAME REVIEW: This War of Mine

by Shay Moore The TribalDancer Monday, August 12, 2019

This War of Mine tells you right up front it isn't going to be "fun". Adapted from a video game of the same name, it takes place in a fictional country in the middle of a civil war. It's been said it was loosely based on the experiences of survivors of the Siege of Sarajevo. Another survivor wrote a sobering review in which he said it perfectly captured his experience, so that should give you an idea of how "fun" it would be...

You play survivors who are stuck inside the city among other survivors and rebels, all of whom might trade with you...or they might attack you, shell your shelter, or raid it at night and steal all your supplies. You have no food, no water, no medical supplies, not even a chair or a book to your name. You're holed up in a ransacked house with two other survivors trying to scavenge what you can to stay alive day-to-day.

I don't know what to do with myself and this game. We kickstarted it, and knew it was going to be an investment in time and energy to play, so other games kept bubbling to the top of the "let's play" list. Finally we had a fully free weekend and I suggested we finally get invested in set up, learning, and playing. We played both Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon on the first scenario.

Punishing doesn't even cover it. Before we were through Chapter 1, snipers showed up in town, putting us at risk every time we went scavenging, and we were feeling fairly shell-shocked (no pun intended). You MUST go scavenging or die of starvation or dehydration/misery. We were making decisions about who got to eat the one vegetable, or drink the limited water. Who gets to sleep on the bed we managed to make, and who works through the night without a break. A new survivor showed up at our door. A fireman! With an axe, our first weapon to defend ourselves from interlopers during night raids! He's strong, can carry a lot, and only comes in a bit fatigued. Maybe things are turning around for a little bit.

First night out scavenging he gets shot by snipers. Three wounds. Back at the shelter, raiders attack, wounding one of our other members, and stealing almost all our most valuable supplies we had managed to scrape up including the only food. Before the next dawn, three of our members have taken their own lives, their hunger maxed out, unable to withstand the emotional burden of pushing on. This left our last survivor alone in the house. The only bandage we managed to trade for left with the fireman when he committed suicide. The bullet wound on our lone survivor gets worse, and he can't scavenge effectively alone. He takes his own life due to maxing out his misery. I am tearing up reading the first character's final story, and by the end I am choking back sobs as I read how each chose to leave the world and why.

We had plenty of day left. We could have played more right there, and usually do with games we find this compelling. But instead we cleaned up this game, re-set the game for another day when we have steeled ourselves and feel ready to try again. I have no idea when that will be...

Punishing.

Small complaint to share: I find the way they introduce the rules to be needlessly frustrating. In order to keep the main rule book streamlined (the "Journal", as it is called), they peppered more detailed rules into the "Scripts" book--the thicker book which has all the narrative aspects of the game (think Tales of the Arabian Nights or Above & Below/Near & Far, with numbered paragraphs which are referenced during the game to add to the story or introduce boons or consequences of actions). Thank heavens for BGG and their player-made downloadable files. We downloaded a PDF which had all the Scripts rules collated and indexed (rather than skipping around the book searching), a "Important to Know" sort of player-made errata to help address common mistakes, and sleeveable card size player reference cards to help us track round progression. In the end, the game is no all that complex, just laborious to get through the first day or so if you've never played before and are flipping around all the reference materials. So if you're feeling frustrated, avail yourself of the resources available and rest assured it will all make much more sense quickly.