The BIG Games Winner is... The Camibians!

By Brian Smith


Here's a blurb about the team. Hit the read more button below to read the full story about their experience making the game, and how the game works. It really is great.

We are the Camibians. Nine Canadians, and nine Namibians chosen to be a part of a Canada World Youth cultural exchange, and community development program. This program promotes informal learning, and the development of active and model citizens during its six month duration. We will be spending three months in Powell River, B.C. (where we are currently) living in the community with host families and running various projects. In December, we will be going to Gobabis, Namibia where we will do the same in this community until the end of the program in March. Winning the BIG game contest has given our team the opportunity to explore the potential of the group. We have the ability to do GREAT things, and will use the 5000$ to help us along the way. We intend to invest the prize money in sustainable programs within both communities in an attempt to promote the existence of such programs to continue on even after we have left. Furthermore, we intend to run a pilot project of “Free Trade” within our current community, in order to evaluate its success. Thank you for helping us dream BIG, and know that the money won will be spent in a very positive and productive way. Thank You.

We are eighteen youth from Canada and Namibia who were given the opportunity to participate in the BIG game design contest. This seemed like an overwhelming idea at first. Not only was the idea of bringing eighteen different voices and ideas together in a coherent way intimidating, but the criteria for the game itself proved to be very difficult to meet. Create a game that is fun and playable, while expanding social networks, and including EVERYONE. At first, it took a while to get the project moving at all. When it finally began to move, the group went in circles with many contrasting ideas. Understanding that it was very counter productive to be working in this way, a few people took the project on, and began adding structure to our group brainstorming sessions and discussion. As a starting point, the group members were asked to share favorite games with one another, as we began to identify the reasons that these particular games were fun, focusing on the reoccurring ideas/themes.

From this point we began to discuss the limiting aspects of games remembering that this is a BIG game we are designing; a game that must be inclusive to EVERYONE. Although some group members were more interested in this task than others, everyone ran into the same wall when sharing ideas: How can we create a game that is playable by everyone? Is this even possible?

Having identified this as the main issue, we soon realized that any such game should eliminate the idea of competition and defeat of others – eliminating a need for advanced skill. Furthermore, our game could not require much strategy or complexity in order to suit the needs of all levels of understanding. The game must be simple and understood by all. This is when the group started throwing around ideas of love and kindness. Love; a language that is simple and universal.

Understanding that we must utilize this valuable tool, we ran into our next conflict. “Is it possible to run a playable game based on the notion of love and kindness?” Although we strayed away from this idea, we kept coming back to it as we searched for fair and equal playing ground to all. This idea stuck. Through our game we will utilize the ability of loving and kind acts as being a universal language, which everyone can understand. At the same time, it is a tool which can be used to affect EVERYONE involved in a positive way.

So, we tried applying this idea to existing games that we all enjoyed. Eventually, we applied it to a game that we were playing in the group at the time called “Assassin”; a game where individuals are secretly assigned to carry out the “murder” of the designated target using a designated object and location. We decided that instead of “murdering” each other (an idea which sounds rather harsh outside of its context here) we should try to apply the ideas of love and kindness which we had discussed. Doing something nice to someone instead of doing something solely in defeat of them, is so simple an idea that it seems to be overlooked. Understanding the solidity in this approach, we gave birth to the basis of our game; being productive and kind in the defeat of others. This would allow people to interact on a very friendly and productive level, as it seems to be very difficult for acts of kindness not to be well received.

Now, the group established that the objective for players in the game would be to claim an assigned target player by carrying out a desire which the assigned target player has. But, if players are interacting with people that they may have never met before (since the game aims to expand people’s social circles) there must be a way for players to designate individual desires. This is where we came up with the idea of using an online network (an idea that was brought up earlier in the group) as a tool needed to identify players and their desires, to the other players within a common playing network. Each player will have a profile on the network stating 3 desires.

From here, we began to brainstorm ways of making the desires to be carried out possible to everyone. We began to think of situations that would segregate certain groups of people and decided to come up with a guideline for establishing wishes; in order to facilitate the needs of everyone. With eighteen voices to help shape the criteria, this is what we were able to come up with as guidelines for the three wishes: one must be physically challenging (in order to cater to those who may be mentally challenged), one must be mentally challenging (in order to cater to those who may be physically challenged), and the last one is somewhat of a “wildcard”.

Now, we got into the issue of money, realizing that money may also be a segregating factor to players within the game. Thanks to a few people in the group who feel very strongly about sustainable living, we decided it best to force players to attain any necessary goods using alternative methods to money. This helps to enforce everyone playing from the same field, as well as promote sustainability, and creativity within communities and players.

The group also spent some time trying to come up with a driving force for the players of the game; what will drive people to play? There must be some end result, and we came up with one that allows recognition of the winner, as well as participating organizations, and the community. The winner will receive a small bursary which is to be used towards the community in a very productive way (this will be monitored by the game master, and or organizing body) Furthermore the winner will get not one, but all 3 of their wishes fulfilled while having the satisfaction of fulfilling others wishes along the way.

Essentially, the group began very confused and overwhelmed with the task at hand, unsure of how completion was even possible. Once a few bright ideas were put forth by several candidates, the group as a whole was able to evolve and develop the ideas being presented into the finished product: Free Trade. We managed this by installing a structure that ensured everyone’s voice was heard. Group members were all given the ability to put forth ideas anonymously on paper, which were later shared with the rest of the group in open discussion. Based on the suggestions put forth, the group arrived at our conclusions through debate, and the majority voting process.
The title, for example, was decided upon in this way. FREE TRADE was a name idea put forth by an anonymous member, and unanimously chosen among the group as the official title to our BIG game. Why? Because we wanted to change the perception of what FREE TRADE is. From an economist point of view, the international free trade allows large corporations to gain disproportionate market power because they don’t need to pay taxes or tariffs to local authorities. Since our game is not linked with money, we wanted to show that free trade can be something really positive; something that allows kindness, selflessness, and inclusion rather than unfair and exploitative labor. We wanted to give this term-which has negative connotations-new meaning. Some of the other ideas which were not used as the main title were used as slogans for the game.

This experience forced the group to think “outside of the box”. At first many participants were putting forth generic board game playing ideas, only adapted to a larger scale. However, meeting ALL of the set criteria for the design forced us to think very differently and unconventionally leading us to the core of our game: getting players to be productive and kind in the defeat of others. In this sense, we invented a new form of game play with FREE TRADE.

In addition, the process forced us to consider the role of money in inclusiveness, realizing that money must be eradicated from a game which is open to each and EVERYONE.

And so, using our eighteen voices as an advantage, we managed to come up with a game which the entire group developed together– there were many ideas as well as opinions used to get the game to its final stage. Creating this game forced many people to think outside of their usual conventional limitations expanding the possibilities for evaluating and reflecting material in the future. Also, winning this game has impacted our group as it has reminded us of the potential which we all have. Winning the BIG game has shown us how BIG we are, and how much BIGGER we have the potential to be.

How to play Free Trade: one world, one voice, one game.

The Idea: connect people
spread love
fulfill desires
explore and discover
new and creative
achieving big things through small wishes

The Rules: commit to the game
do not discriminate against other players
game fee: get two people minimum involved.
ENJOY!!!

1) Get Involved: Entrance "fee" to join the game is to bring two new players into the game. Post personal profile and include three personal wishes (which must follow criteria) on the game network. Receive secret ID tag specific to you.

Wish Criteria:
one must be physically challenging (teach me how to play soccer)
one must be physically challenging (write a poem for me)
the last one is your “WILD” wish (a wish of your choosing)

*Wishes must not be illegal or sex related, nor can they put players in danger. Players are not allowed to spend money in attaining wishes; anything required must be attained in a creative way. Wishes must be realistic.

2) Target: You will be assigned a secret "target" within your playing network. Your goal now is to choose one of your target's three wishes and fulfill it. Furthermore this must be done spontaneously- they must not know that you are planning to fulfill a wish. If you can successfully complete one of your targets wishes, they are eliminated form the game, and you receive verification in the form of their secret ID tag. Now, you assume the target of the defeated player, in order to continue and repeat this process of elimination and fulfilling wishes. At some point you will either…

LOOSE: through getting a wish fulfilled, you will give up your target and ID tag. The game is not over here. You can sign up for the next game, and monitor the process of the current game through staying updated on-line.

OR

WIN: though attaining yourself as a target you get your three wishes fulfilled, and receive a bursary to put towards the community. Also, the winner receives notoriety within the community as well as the satisfaction of fulfilling others’ wishes.

Larger Impacts : expand social networks and understanding, connect to the larger world around you, encourage the reuse of retired items, promote sustainable consumption habits, encourage growth of human generosity, utilize pre-existing organizations, businesses, and databases to exceed their current involvement in the community, promote creativity, etc.