Let's play a game...Monopoly or Settlers of Catan?
Games are social, fun and good games have a learning experience. We played games when I was a kid, in the evening, when it was cold and rainy outside. Instead of watching TV or playing on our smartphone.
When I met Dave, we ended up to talk about the game "Settlers of Catan. One of our favourite games and Game of the Year for some year.
It wasn't available in the hostel game box but we are creative and we can create/make games. Dave is an artist and when we first met he said it would be easy to build the Settlers game. It just takes dedication and people are always distracted and tend to be lazy instead of using their potential. The next day, instead of building the Settler game, Dave found a Monopoly game and wanted to play it. Not because it's better but just because it's there, ready to take.
Monopoly is a game about money. Buy as much as you can and to win by buying everything while walking for all the time in the same round. It's boring after some time. Settlers of Catan is normally a shorter game of development. Develop your own settlement and trade resources with other players. We both said we don't like Monopoly. We both like Settlers of Catan more. It also symbolizes the world a bit, how it is at the moment and how it maybe should be. Maybe they are just two games, maybe a metaphor for our world, who knows. But in fact, there are a lot of people who prefer Settlers over Monopoly!
In the end Dave started to build the game and other friends joined to help. It's fun to build a game and be creative but it takes time and effort. Finding some cardboard in the trash to create the game, using painted matchsticks for the roads and stones for the settlements. My friends always got distracted instead of finishing the game. Instead of playing and trying a maybe non perfect game, they wanted to build a perfect game from the beginning, like the original one, no adaptation, fixed on a plan.
"The template has to be perfect." Wrong! You can draw it, make mistakes, cut it and make it again. Games and Life is a try and we can just always try our best, that's all we can do. We almost finished the game and I went out for a run, when I came back everyone was in front of the TV and drinking alcohol.
Steve, hasn't played the game but always heard about it and wanted to play it. Always waiting for it, because others have had no time but he also didn't invest the time to help the others to really play the game. We never have time and this virus shows us that we have no time, but instead of using our time wisely and playing a game with friends, we hide and save ourselves in fear and distraction. Time is never stopping, it's just passing by and now we have the time to think and realize what kind of Life/Game we want to play in the future. Monopoly or Settlers.
In the end we played a self created not completely perfect settler game and we all have had a lot of fun. I played with an open hand, sharing and trading all my cards just to try a different way. It didn't work out completely and I didn't win but also didn't lose completely but have had a lot of fun during the game. The winner does not get more than the same fun, maybe a little bit more for his ego but after 5 min, no one is anymore talking about the winner.
Everyone was proud to have built a game which normally cost 50-60$. Saying we build a game for free. Not completely true, we invested time but as long as the time is worth it it's better than money.
For me a game is not about winning but learning with the process and having fun with friends. One friend asked how long a game takes on average. I said, normally around 60 minutes but I also played ones over 4 hours, til 3 am into the night. "Ohh, that's sounds not good." It's good, we chose to play and we could always stop but games are supposed to make fun and forget the time, so we have had a good game instead of sleeping - a fair deal for me.
Learnings from the Game:
When you throw a seven and have more than 7 ressources you lose half of it. I've had 10, so I lost 5. Other friends were angry. But it's just a game where you lose and get ressources. Just a game, so I have had no regrets. Because, it's not affecting my life at all, wouldn't it be great if we could just see life as a game
Tables moved. Oh no, the world is collapsing-laughing. We built the game again.
You can trade resources with the other players or the bank in the game.
Ole: "I give you two weat. Dave: "But I´d rather trade with Becca, she is nicer and she needs it more." Ole: "I give you three. Dave, wait. I will change one for one but you have to wait till it's my turn. Ole: "I can't wait."
I played the game another time with two other friends and we were just giving everything whenever someone asked to help. It worked and was fun too. In the end someone won and we all had fun and played the same game and maybe even a bit faster and with more fun. I learned something out of both times, I played the game. Same game, same rules, same outcome but two times a different game experience.
I also, really like to be creative with other games and change the rules sometimes just to try new things but often other people are too focused on the rules and don’t want to try new rules, even so it’s just a game and nothing can happen. It could be more or less fun than before or it could be just a different experience than people have from the game experience before. We can just learn from some games but therefore we have to play them. Nothing can happen.
We played some Werewolf another evening. It’s a role game. You have some Werewolves, who kill villagers in the night and during the day the villagers have to decide to figure out who the Werewolves are to kill them and win as a village. Then there are some extra characters like Armor, a healer, a hunter, a couple and so on to make the game a bit more interesting. The villagers have to work together and have to decide democratically, who they think is a werewolf and who they want to kill. It’s a fun kid`s game to play around a campfire, but apparently adults like it too and maybe it’s even a game teaching us a bit about how the world works. Just a kids game but fun.
I invented the murder game. Symbolizing the virus. You hand over a thing when you are alone with another person. Both have to touch it. Everyone wanted to be in--taking the risk for a virus for fun. Is it irresponsible? No, we are in the same house for 4 weeks. It's impossible to not touch. Games can symbolize life so well.
I also played a game of chees later with Steve. Unfortunately, it was a chess game out of drinking glasses for every figure you lose you have to drink. We both thought it's stupid to combine a strategic game of kings with drinking and played without drinking. We played and it looked pretty bad for me and I lost a lot of figures but in the end I won by surprise. A game/Life is never over before it's over!
Just hope and want to motivate you to play some games with your friends or family at this time. After this, the Game of Life is starting again and it has been changed and you can always choose how you wanna play the game!
Next Game: Game of Life. Enjoy it to the fullest. You can only play it once and you don’t know for how long. And you can make most of the rules, so be creative.
Kommentar schreiben