design courses, syllabi, schedules, resources and policies
I would recommend:
My Hero Academia. There are three movies with the show but they are extraneous to the plot and the first movie (Two Heroes) has a slightly different animation style and different writers than the show.
Phineas and Ferb
Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle (Studio Ghibli movies in general are awesome, but these two are my favorites)
SpiderVerse movies (1 and 2)
Star Trek: Lower Decks or Star Trek: Prodigy
Objective: Gain the most points by traveling around campus
Starting Out: Every player will roll a die. The dice roll corresponds to the disability experienced by that player. Place your character token somewhere in Nicholson (blue building). The player who took ibuprofen/pain meds most recently will go first. Play will continue clockwise.
Turn:
Moving:
Gaining points: Once you have reached your destination, you can collect your point tokens.
Winning: First person to 5 points wins
Ben – Occupational proper postures: For this game, you would have to correct people’s postures by manually adjusting their bodies before OSHA comes over to inspect. You would start with a lot of time, but as the game progresses, you’d have less and less time to correct someone’s posture before OSHA came over.
Mia – Food deserts: There is a board with fixed food store locations. Each player represents a town. On each turn, you will have to move one space further away from the food store. Then you will have the option of going for food, bribing the government to move your town back closer to the food stores, or fighting the other towns for resources. There will also be either cards to pull or dice to roll that will randomly impact the game as it progresses.
Max – baby formula shortage: You are a struggling young mother several states away from all of your family. You will have to check your stores for baby formula (they don’t have much) but also call upon your family members to check their stores for formula. If your family finds formula, you have to figure out a way to get it from them (rolling dice to move maybe?) before your baby goes hungry.
Clay – Urban Sprawl: There are 2 objectives in this game: spread your city as far as you can and keep people in the city happy. Each turn you must expand your city, but you have to be strategic as to which expansion tiles you lay down. Too many apartment buildings/not enough green space etc. will make people upset. If people get upset, they will leave and your city will shrink again. Maybe also add in things like geographical boundaries (ie rivers, mountains) that force you to expand in one direction. Each player is trying to make the biggest city by the end of x amount of rounds.
Ronan – Retirement homes: You are a nurse at a retirement home who hates old people. You must try to cause as much medical negligence to the occupants of the nursing home without the other nurses catching on. However, if you find evidence of someone else’s medical negligence, you must report it and help to fix the issue. If your negligence is reported three times, you are fired. You must try to cause the most negligence without being discovered or fired before the nursing home shuts down (due to bad press coverage).
Dumb Ways To Die: I actually knew about the song ad well before the game. For me, this was a lighthearted reminder that focused more on the ways to die than the message of ‘be safe around trains’. I think it lost a lot of the seriousness of the message when it was turned into an app game. However, the song is damn catchy, so I guess if the point of the game is to remind you of the song (and the PSA at the end), then this game succeeds in doing that. Fun point to note – I had downloaded, played, and deleted this game before this class! I think I had deleted it because I got frustrated that I wasn’t very good at some of the tasks. Second time around downloading this game and I found that problem still existed.
Fake It To Make It: This was a fun little political game about the dangers of fake news. It’s literally so easy to spread fake news! I think this did a good job of showing just how easy it is to spread misinformation, and how many people will just willingly believe it without doing any further research or reading. Mechanic wise, I could see myself probably getting into if I played for more than five minutes. The different objectives and “not all terrible news all the time” would keep it interesting enough, at least until I got tired of the same fake news stories, to merit this game another play.
Cards Against Calamity: From the title, I would have thought this game would be closer to the hilarious fill-in-the-blank Cards Against Humanity. However, it was a fun resource collecting game to raise awareness bout marine life, town economics, and ecological disasters (caused almost entirely from corporate greed). This game was very difficult to win, even on easy mode. However, it did make it quite clear that each action has its consequences, whether you meant them to happen or not.
Cast Your Vote: My god this one was boring. It definitely seems like something they would make you try to play in a civics class. The pace, the debates, the everything was just so dull and slow. There are many other and better ways to learn how to be an informed voter and how to vote. This ain’t it, chief.
Mia, Ronan, and I played Crossing the Bridge by Francisco Ortega. The premise of this game was that you were trying to smuggle food, drugs, and people into the US, while bringing household items (and occasionally guns) back into Mexico while avoiding Customs. This is obviously supposed to be a serious game that shines light on immigrations issues. However, I found myself having fun and focusing more on the mechanics/winning than the message.
We as the smugglers were just trying to better our lives in Mexico. We did this by smuggling people/drugs/food into the US, collecting money, and using that money to pay for things like furniture and a dishwasher. This is a very real scenario that many people find themselves actually in. Some are trying to raise enough money to send their kids to school, but pretty much all people who smuggle things across the US-Mexico border are trying to make their lives better.
I felt this game trivialized those struggles. I got caught at Customs on one of the rounds with drugs, so I lost my passport. But I was able to buy another one at the mall almost immediately after for just $100. In real life, you have to spend the money to fill out the paperwork and then wait, sometimes up to six weeks, before your passport comes in. If I lost a car piece, I could just buy it back. Maybe if we started the game with less money overall, it would have felt like more of a struggle.
From a mechanics standpoint, the game was actually pretty fun. I enjoyed the ‘risk’ at Customs and seeing what I could get away with. Real people do not get the luxury of enjoying playing chicken with US Customs. It is a very real situation with very real consequences. While this game shone a light on immigration issues, I felt that overall, it lost its seriousness and therefore the punch/impact Ortega might have been going for.
Physical disability access (hello stairs to the TV studio)
Rent gouging
Food deserts
Captions (wrong/incorrect captions or captions that don’t line up. What’s the point?)
Feral cat colonies (cats not being spayed/neutered)
Don’t Diss My Ability: Starting at one point on campus, you have to get to a different predetermined destination on campus via certain paths. Each path has both a point value and a time value. You are trying to get to your destination in the least amount of time while maximizing your point value. These values change depending on what disability you have. The types of disabilities would be deafness (cannot go on any of the sidewalks by the roads, must communicate via ASL), ADHD (time values increase when you encounter friends, easily distracted to take the ‘wrong’ path), and mobility issues. Mobility issues would be split into two subcategories: canes and wheelchairs. Cane users can go up/down up to 5 steps before their time increases a lot (due to pain slowing you down). Wheelchair users can not do stairs at all.
Game 2: All players get a pair of noise cancelling headphones making everyone essentially deaf. Working together as a team, you have to solve a puzzle. As you cannot hear other people, you must use a combo of gestures/signed language to solve the puzzle. This would raise awareness of deafness, difficulties faced, and the lack of ASL teaching in American school systems.
Game 3: You are a villager in a village located at the bend of a once pristine river. The river has become polluted through the addition of a factory on the other side of the river. Your food, work, and life have been severely stunted. You must sneak into the factory each night to try to do as much damage to the factory operations before you must be back in the village in the morning. This is a commentary on pollution, climate change, and corporate greed.
The McDonald’s game, designed by people to make fun of McDonald’s, was very hard to play. It probably would have been easier to play had I read the entire 30 page tutorial booklet. But come on, it was 30 pages of half serious tutorial. The jokes got old quicker than actual tutorial was happening. This made playing the game very hard. I bankrupted the whole company 3 times in approximately 10 minutes. It was unclear how to farm, turn the farmed material into food, and sell burgers. I don’t think I ever even clicked on the corporate tab to see what actions could be taken. I would not recommend this game if you were actually looking to play a game (unless you like and are very good at fast paced collecting games). I do recommend it to notice the commentary on McDonald’s and corporate greed.
We played modified Monopoly where some people were the wealthy 1%, ‘regular’ white guys, women, and minorities. Each character strata had different rules. Ronan (1%) started on top and very quickly got to be the best. I (a ‘regular white guy’) started pretty well off and was not really affected by Ronan’s buying up all the properties. I think Max was a woman, and he struggled to get anything going. Clay and Ethan were minorities who spent most of their time in jail and couldn’t really do anything. As a queer disabled female-appearing person, I am well aware of the real life systemic oppressions that I and other people faced. It was nice to be a ‘regular white guy’ and not be affected by the System for once.
Game 1: You are a lowly worker bee in a hive trying to get to the queen. You must go out each day and collect a certain quota of pollen to fill your honey meter while avoiding obstacles. When you have filled your honey meter, you move up in the social order of the hive. When you have gotten to be the queen of the hive, you lay eggs from which you are born and must complete the cycle again. Each time you complete the bee cycle, you get a small upgrade to make it easier to avoid obstacles.
Game 2: A sort of frogger type game where you are an RMU student who must go across a non-ending map of campus trying to get class credits and snacks from Romo’s while avoiding teachers, parking tickets, tour groups, and failing grades.
Game 3: Does War count as an endless game? Can I use my War(+colors) game from last semester as an endless game? It took bloody ages and we eventually abandoned it.
Game 4: You are a regular person going through your regular life, but you are obsessed with doing your laundry. You must put your clothes in the hamper at the end of every day, get your dirty clothes in the washer after every week, put them in the dryer after a certain amount of time, take them out, fold them and put them away to have more clothes to wear. While you are obsessed with doing your laundry, your neighbors are obsessed with stopping you from doing your laundry.
Game 5: A scrolling platform game where you are a secret vigilante at the library who must collect the books people are returning and put them back on the shelf in the right spots while avoiding the corrupt librarians who want to put books back incorrectly (and therefore shut down the library).
I really liked this game, even though I had to leave early. From what I gathered, your goal was to bloom the flowers in the field to bring color back to that part of the world. I imagine once you got a whole meadow recolored, you had to go back to the main menu and select a different type of flower to go again and recolor that world. It seems like lovely relaxing game with a nice premise to bring about color in the world.
If you do go back to the main menu and get to recolor each world, I could see how you could spend a lot of time playing this game. I like the idea of trying to 100% collect all the flowers, even if you don’t need to bloom every blossom to recolor the space.
PS watching Max handle the wind spirit/controller was a little nauseating but I would have liked to try it myself.
Set Up
Shuffle each deck separately. Each player will choose either the pirate deck or the god deck.
Card Anatomy
Play
Each player will reveal the first card on top of their deck. Winner is determined by element.
If two elements are pulled that are not listed above (fire vs. air, water vs. earth), the winner of the round is determined by the higher point value.
If element and point value are the same, draw and reveal a second card.
If you win the round, your card is shuffled back into your deck. If you lose the round, your card is set to the side and removed from play.
If you had to draw a second card and you win based on that second card, you get to shuffle both back into your deck. If you lose based on the second card, both of your cards are removed from play.
Winning the Game
You win when you have exhausted your opponent’s deck.
Setup
Take out the game board and place it on the table. Shuffle the CHANCE cards and place in the middle of the board. Players choose a grandmother character card, and place the corresponding piece on the start square. Each grandmother has an effect listed on her card. Marsha’s effect happens at the beginning of the game. Everyone else’s effects will happen as they become relevant (the specific card is drawn). The oldest player goes first.
Objective
The goal of this game is to beat the other grandmothers and collect the most yarn before the sale at the craft store closes.
Actions Players Take
At the start of their turn, the player will roll a die and move that number of spaces. Spaces include yarn, chance, and blank spaces. If players land on a yarn space, they get a skein of yarn. If players land on a chance space, they pick up a chance card and do what it says. If the player lands on a blank space, they do nothing.
Chance Cards
+/- yarn cards: the yarn comes from and goes back to the craft store, unless otherwise noted
Grandkids: each grandmother has one visit from their grandkids. Whoever’s grandkids are visiting, they get +1 yarn. If you pull a grandkids card that does not have your grandmother name on it, you must give one yarn from your stash to that grandmother. If no one is playing that grandmother, you do not have to do anything.
Neighborhood Swap: you get a lovely pot roast (this does not affect the game, but it’s tasty) and you choose one of the other grandmothers to get 1 yarn
Canasta/Bingo: The grandmothers listed on that card receive 1 yarn. If you are not a grandmother listed on that card, you do not get any yarn
Estate Sale: Give 1 yarn to every other player from your own stash. If you do not have enough yarn for the amount of people playing, give 1 yarn to each person starting on your left and going clockwise until you run out of yarn.
Retirement: Receive 1 yarn from every other player. If a player does not have any yarn, then you do not get yarn from them (pretty simple)
Ending the Game
The craft store will kick you out when you have gone around the board 3 times. When you have gone around 3 times, you are done and must remove your piece from the board. Once you are off the board, your stash of yarn remains constant, and is not affected by any of the chance cards.
The grandmother with the most yarn in her stash wins.
Granny Squares Rules v.2
Setup
Take out the game board and place it on the table. Shuffle the CHANCE cards and place in the middle of the board. Players choose a grandmother character card and place the corresponding piece on the start square. Everyone starts with 3 yarn.
Each grandmother has an effect listed on her card. Marsha’s effect happens at the beginning of the game. Everyone else’s effects will happen as they become relevant (the specific card is drawn). Each time you go around the board, you will get one round token. The oldest player goes first.
Objective
The goal of this game is to beat the other grandmothers and collect the most yarn before the sale at the craft store closes.
Actions Players Take
At the start of their turn, the player will roll a die and move that number of spaces.
Spaces
Start: Where players start. Collect 1 yarn each time you go around the board and pass or land on this space. Do not collect yarn at the start of the game.
Chance: pull a chance card
+ Yarn: If you land on a colored yarn space that matches your grandmother color, you get +2 yarn. Otherwise, you get +1 yarn.
– Yarn: Lose 1 yarn. It goes back to the craft store.
Mobility Aids: Advance forward 2 spaces to Chance and pull a chance card.
Advance to Start: Move your character piece to the start space. Collect 1 yarn and 1 round token.
Blank: nothing happens on these spaces.
Chance Cards
+/- Yarn: the yarn comes from and goes back to the craft store, unless otherwise noted
Grandkids: each grandmother has one visit from their grandkids. Whoever’s grandkids are visiting, they get +1 yarn. If you pull a grandkids card that does not have your grandmother name on it, you must give one yarn from your stash to that grandmother. If no one is playing that grandmother, you do not have to do anything.
Neighborhood Swap: you get a lovely pot roast (this does not affect the game, but it’s tasty) and you give 1 yarn to the first member of the opposite granny gang sitting to your left. Dawn does not lose any yarn, but she can still gain yarn.
Canasta/Bingo: The grandmothers listed on that card receive 1 yarn. If you are not a grandmother listed on that card, you do not get any yarn
Bingo Hall Brawl: Each member of the Canasta Cadre must give 1 yarn to a member of the Bingo Brigade. Carol gives to Marsha, Ethyl gives to Heidi, Rosemary gives to Dawn. If a granny is not in play, disregard this card.
Canasta Combat: Each member of the Bingo Brigade must give 1 yarn to a member of the Canasta Cadre. Marsha gives to Carol, Heidi gives to Ethyl, Dawn gives to Rosemary. If a granny is not in play, disregard this card.
Steal: Take 1 yarn from a member of the opposite granny gang
Estate Sale: Give 1 yarn to every other player from your own stash. If you do not have enough yarn for the amount of people playing, give 1 yarn to each person starting on your left and going clockwise until you run out of yarn.
Retirement: Receive 1 yarn from every other player. If a player does not have any yarn, then you do not get yarn from them (pretty simple)
Ending the Game
The craft store will kick everyone out as soon as one person has gone around the board 3 times or collected 3 round tokens. The person who does this will earn 1 yarn for each member of her granny gang.
The grandmother with the most yarn in her stash wins.
This week we played Splendor, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I had played it once before and got my ass kicked, but this time I had an inkling of an idea of what I was doing. I think the fun in Splendor comes from both trying to get to your goals and also trying to guess (and stop, if you wish) your opponents from getting to their goals. From past experience, I knew the points mattered more than the nobles, so I was going after gem cards that could be used to buy nobles but that could also be used as points regardless. In this way, I ended up with the most points (9) by the time class ran out. I would 100% play this game again and would even buy it for my own collection of games.