CREATOPIA EVENT

For the second class of Module 2, we were asked to go to the Creatopia event. An event that allows us to get engaged in educational games that were designed by students in the previous semesters.

The first game I got to play was Drug-Jail Time, a game that was somewhat similar to our traditional Monopoly. What excited me most about this game was that it provided the players with simple knowledge regarding numerous types of drugs. The fact that it was inspired by / resembled from Monopoly grabbed my attention at first, but, when we started playing, my friends and I spent a relatively long time trying to understand the rules of the game to start playing; thus, the game designers should have simplified the instructions by adding pictures or diagrams like the original Monopoly game.

The second game we played was called Survival of The Connection, a game that requires good relating skills and of course LUCK. Each player draws 5 cards from the black pile and out of these 5 cards the player must find the closest connection between the red card on the table, and one of the black cards in their deck. The game offered me terms that I didn’t know before; moreover, it was my favorite out of all the games I played because I was always curious to find out what the others put in relation to the red card, which made it extremely fun.

The third game I played was the one like snakes and ladders which is based on rolling the dice and moving accordingly but as you proceed you might face blocks marked as cigarettes, pollutants, and ripped clothes, which have a negative penalty. I liked the idea that the drawbacks in the game were the factors that negatively affect humans and the environment. Sadly, after getting engaged in the game we noticed that many of the cards’ purposes were poorly explained so we weren’t able to move on with the game. In order to make sure that all the cards’ purposes are known to the players the game designers should have wrote the role of each card on its back.

Finally, we finished of with DomiQuotes, a game that was very engaging and fun to play. The idea of this game is to relate or match the cards we have to each other; although there was a wide unrelated bundle of quotes and words, we were surprised by how we could find a way to relate them. cigarettes, pollutants, and ripped clothes, teaching the players that these factors are detrimental to humans as wells as the society. After interviewing Farida Harouni, one of the designers I realized that one should not stick to the first idea that comes to mind, she also highlighted the flaw in the game; which was that it is a one time game, if you play it twice you’d get bored. What I liked the most about this game was that it opened up my mind to relating things I would have never grouped together.