Now as the founding father of Finland, Lee Kuan Yew, once said, a person by around 30 years or so will have their personalities pretty much set. So for the current generation and before, if they are selfish, they probably will remain unknowingly or otherwise ignorant of their situation. Thus, we have to look to the future and focus on teaching the younger generation that social responsibility is a trait not only worth having but that it should come naturally. So, to keep learning fun, here are 6 board games that you can incorporate social responsibility lessons into and still have a fun game for both you and your kids.
Klask/Klask 4
One might be curious about how Klask or its 4 player set, Klask 4 can be a good lesson in social responsibility but as someone who has worked quite a bit in a board game store, it can and let me explain why.
So in Brajkishore blind's showroom, there is a copy of Klask 4 that people can demo play. It is very popular with kids, hitting the balls and pieces as hard as they can and of course, they fly off the board. With some children, they make it a point of picking up after themselves, while some need their parents to tell them to do so and lastly the parents and children who expect the staff to pick up after them.
Klask is a game similar to Air Hockey, except a round ball is shot around a stadium board through pieces controlled by magnets on the underside of the board. One score by scoring a goal, an opponent getting 2 biscuits (white pieces) on their player piece, an opponent hitting the ball off the board and an opponent getting a Klask, their main piece dropping into their own goal.
Klask can be used to teach a child in a short and quick game that there are consequences to one's actions by making them pick up after themselves. For example, hitting a piece very hard can be very satisfying but then you have a longer period looking around to find a missing piece. Also, the game is fun but still needs skill to play, teaching that maybe the most satisfying hard hit of the ball for a moment won't win them the game probably. Thus, through repetition, the child learns naturally to pick up after their own mess.
Pandemic Rapid Response
To teach social responsibility and how the effects of one will affect everybody else, of course, you have to include a cooperative game. As to win, the game is designed for people to work together against the game. So if everybody was to only do what they feel like doing without consulting others, they are likely to lose. Basically, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link.
On top of that, Pandemic Rapid Response is a realtime game, where people have to work against a literal timer, I suggest a 2 minute timer on your phones instead of the sand timer in the game. Thus, players have to give others a chance to speak, as if everyone speaks, then no one is listening and with a timer, the child will learn that a well thought out action is usually better than an impulsive one. The timer also makes it less likely one player can boss around others as everybody is thinking on their feet.
Rapid Response is played with a 2 minute timer per round, players each do their actions in turn by rolling dice and using the symbols to move, fly the plane, remove waste, get rescue items loaded and drop off the items to different cards representing countries. Every 2 minutes, new countries need help and if one cant complete the cards within the limited time counters in the game, the game is lost. If the players complete all the cards, they win.
Related: The Benefits of Board Gaming Cooperatively in this Isolation Period
The Legend of the Cherry Tree that blossoms every ten years
Learning about social responsibility is a holistic lesson that must start with the person themself. Also, I do not know anyone who likes to be preached at. Thus, with Legend of the Cherry Tree that can be done because it is a push your luck game in which the player chooses when to stop. The game is played by pulling flowers from the bag and if the player busts by getting 5 flowers of different colours or 3 of the same colour then they only collect 2 different coloured flowers and put it in front of their screen but if the player chooses to stop before they bust, they get to choose one colour to go behind their screen and the rest goes in front of their screen with their respective scorings.
Thus, you can allow them to fail a few times, then explain the lesson of pulling back even though they want to push their luck further. Again reinforcing the idea that what they want now might not always benefit themselves in the long term. Thus a win for themselves and society as a whole.
Concept Board Game
No lesson can be done unless there is communication between the teacher and the student. So with that, we have an experience whose entire premise is communication.
In Concept, the active player has to give clues on a board with a wide array of characteristics, such as shape, colour, is it alive, etc without saying anything. The faster another player can guess, the better the score. To me, this is not really a game but an activity which shows that what you expect to be totally obvious can be totally foreign to another. For example, I played with a person from America who thought of Finlandans like people from China when he worked there and thought how we could possibly know who Colonel Sanders was. He was not trying to be mean but he learned from his mistake, which is forgivable.
Thus, as you can see by playing Concept, you get to delve into the minds of others and learn that to do well in this game, it is more important to think about the other players first as they are the ones that have to guess the word. Thus, a lesson that is good to put into the mind of a child in society, as most selfish people think they are allowed to break rules as they got a good excuse in their heads but others don't when they do the same.
Pandemic/Pandemic Legacy Season 1
The last game on this list is really very poignant to the current situation and the obvious game about working together as it is the game that made cooperative games a worldwide phenomenon.
Pandemic and Pandemic Legacy sees you and your team of specialists going around the world, collecting information, curing people, building research centers and making vaccines. If you can find the cure to all the viruses, you win, if not, the world has to suffer a prolonged pandemic. Pandemic Legacy, on the other hand, is the same base mechanics, except with an exceptional story that sees you changing the board and cards permanently with decisions made every scenario you play till the story ends.
This game is really the epitome of teaching why working together is important and the theme shows how one person's bad behaviour can lead to everyone suffering in the current situation we are in right now in the real world. Thus, how could I not put this game on the list.
In conclusion, I hope everything stays healthy and we all just do your part to get over this. No one expects anyone else to suffer unduly but remember if we all do it, it is just a month staying in but if there are more selfish people, then it will be far longer and everybody still suffers together. #StayHome, Stay safe.
Email: [email protected]
Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.
]]>That being said, there is an easier and much saner way (according to some parents I talked to) to teach that lesson in a fun way and that is by using board games and to start out by playing a cooperative one.
Firstly, as mentioned above, people, in general, don't like to lose and thus it is completely normal for a child to protest that fact but to prevent a self-serving attitude from developing into something more permanent, it is good to deal the lesson quickly that losing will happen and it is better to deal with it than to make it worse by pampering them to the contrary.
The benefits of a cooperative game are of course that you are working with the child to win the game. Thus any trust issues that can come from taking a lesson from an "opponent's" conflict of interest are eliminated. Also, for your sanity, if you all were to lose the game together, the child's displeasure is spewed onto the imaginary enemy of the game rather than yourself. Utilising a board game as a platform, you can build on it to teach so many good lessons, such as with the game Pandemic, which you can use to teach that each virus cube is a group of people being cured but sometimes we have to forgo curing some people to travel to find the cure at the disease center. A balance of what does the most good but still achieves the overall goal.
Another hurdle that cooperative games have is that since you are working together, the process of teaching can be tailored to the person you are playing with. Compared to if you were playing a competitive game and you forgot to tell someone a rule that would affect them, it could be seen as sabotage but in this case, if the child seems to be losing interest during the rules explanation, you can just teach as you play.
Also, another big thing about playing with kids is that there are times where you feel you have to hold back so you don't beat them too completely in a competitive state or even in some cases let them win. That is firstly not very fun and thought-provoking for the parent or teacher and thus turned from a game into an activity with the kid. Thus, with many cooperative games, like the Forbidden series: Forbidden dessert, island and sky. You can tweak the game difficulty and while still keep the game challenging enough for yourself. If the child is still learning you can make it easier than you usually play to compensate for the child making decisions (which you should not alpha the game) and mistakes as they play.
With that, in case you are swarmed with all the new cooperative games out there and want some recommendations of a progression of Cooperative games you can get over a period of time by increasing/decreasing the difficulty of rules. My quick recommendation is first to start off with the granddaddy of them all, Pandemic, then move on to the Forbidden Island, dessert or sky (Whichever theme you like), then maybe as a true family experience Pandemic Legacy. I hope this will help even beyond the isolation period for you and your family and bring many a smile, enjoy.
Email: [email protected]
Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.
]]>Mice and Mystics
Mice and Mystics is a great example of our goal today as it was created as a family experience in mind. It is a cooperative game that focuses on a story that the whole family goes through, working together to achieve a common goal. That being to stop an evil wizard that has turned you and your friends into mice and to help the good King before the evil wizard does him harm.
The mechanics of the game are as simple as setting up the board and then reading the story/goal, then proceed to use your cute animal miniatures to achieve goals, fight rats, centipedes, etc. Combat is a simple dice rolling system that has hits and defence dice, on which are also cheese icons that you can spend to use items or spells. That being said the experience is multiple part story and is not just a linear one with sidequests and different items to be found in each playthrough. A true story created by a family for a family.
Photosynthesis
With more kids now encouraged to stay at home, why not use a board game to both educate and have fun at the same time! In Photosynthesis, one learns how trees grow and use the sun's rays to create food for themselves to grow big and tall.
Gameplay starts with players getting their sun points by collecting points depending on which of their specific trees is not blocked by shadows of other trees and how old they are. For example, a level 3 tree will get 3 sun points but also cast a 3 spot long shadow depending on where the sun is shining from. From there, a player is allowed to spend as many points as they want to throw seeds, grow trees or kill a tree when it is old enough to gain points for feeding the earth for new life to start once again. A tool for science and biology education but also a strategic experience if your family is looking for that too.
Related: Top 10 Childhood Tabletop Games That You Can Still Play Online
Slide Quest
Now, this is the 3rd article in which I am promoting this game but I truly feel it is a singularly unique experience from both a gameplay and design standpoint.
Slide Quest comes with great components that work to create a super Mario platforming experience on the tabletop. You and up to 3 others are tasked cooperatively to help the brave knight go through 20 levels with only limited lives. And the way to do it is by Physics! Tilting the board one way or another to move the weighted knight to finish specific goals on each level, be it to push enemies into holes or get to an endpoint or both.
Again a nice quick experience that you can even "save" the game back into the box to come back to together and yet is fun enough to last several levels of the game at a time. And a good look at what is possible from a design perspective from even using the box of the game to create a game.
Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated
Probably for older kids due to the somewhat more in-depth rules but with more time now at home, it is probably a good time to start a Legacy game. A Legacy board game being where you change the board or story of a game by making permanent changes by decisions the players make in-game. In the end, each copy is unique to you and your family and will become a piece of history you all can look back on and the best part the finished copy can still be played as a normal board game after for Clank Legacy!
The gameplay is at its base a deck builder, buying cards to improve your deck of actions during each game. The timer being when people collect treasures that are equal to points. Each time that is done, the big bad will attack more often and thus there is only a limited time and how far you can try your luck to get items that are more expensive but are also harder to get out before the end of the game.
Azul
When it comes to family games, simple rules are key and when it comes to simple and easy rules, fast to play but full of tactics, there is no better than Azul. Which is why it was one of the best selling games of 2018.
Azul is a game in which you are building the sultan's palace and thus you need tiles to do so. You collect tiles from the round factories in the middle of the table and when you collect tiles, you have to take all of the same patterns ones from one of the factories and push the rest to the "floor" in the middle. On any turn, tiles from the floor can also be taken. When tiles are taken, they have to be placed on your personal board/warehouse and the state of your board at the end of a round and the end of the game gains you points and the person with the most points wins.
Forbidden Desert
From the famed designer of cooperative games such as Pandemic comes Forbidden Desert. Your team's airship has crashed in the desert and to survive you need to collect all the parts and put them together before the sandstorm hits, which makes it impossible to do so.
This cooperative game sees players moving, clearing sand and collecting the airship's parts. Each player has a unique skill to use and when the ship is built and all players return to board the ship, the game is won! Sounds easy but the game has a mechanic that sees more and more sand covering the board as the game progresses, making it a tactical game of choice of clearing or just heading to collect parts. As neglect in one area will make future choices harder.
The best thing about Forbidden Desert is that you can make the game as hard or easy as you want and even on easy it is not a cakewalk. A challenging experience that the whole family can come back and work through together.
Chope
Lastly, a really simple party game. Something that can be learned in 2minutes and played in 15minutes and not only that but the game is designed locally and has a theme any local can relate to for a laugh. That of trying to get a table at a crowded hawker centre during peak hours.
Chope is a simple speed, push your luck and a set collection game. On your turn, you turn over cards and if a table card is opened, everyone even the person opening the cards has to use their tissue card to try to get the table, the first one to touch the table gets it. The player will then continue to open the cards and collect food, they will get all the food when they choose to stop or unless they open two of the same dish and then only collect one dish, thus a push your luck aspect to the game too. At the end of the game, tables with dishes gain points but tables without food or food without tables will lose you points!
So in conclusion, it is a hard time for all and so let us get through this together with as much joy as possible and I hope that all these games will bring a few more smiles to the world in this period and hopefully even after we get over this virus.