For thousands of years, games such as Chess and Go gave been used to improve strategic and tactical skills in players. While nearly everyone is familiar with Monopoly (first copyrighted in 1934), it has almost no strategic element and poorly mimics real business because it is “in fact, is a classic example of what economists call a zero-sum game.”1
Enter a new generation of board games designed to reflect how humans actually interact with one another in challenging situations. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Andrew Innes explains that “a board game is a tiny universe: The rules are the laws of physics or social norms, the board is the physical environment, cards often function as resources or catalysts, dice provide a dollop of randomness. And those little pawns? They’re you and me.”2 Not only do the new board games more closely mirror the real worlds of human interaction, they can educate by “forcing us into the spotlight, making us communicate in unusual and uncomfortable ways, or encouraging us to take giant lateral leaps in thinking.”2
Join the Library in the Gallery area on Monday, November 11 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, as we explore and play two of the most popular of the new generation of strategic-cooperative games. Catan and Pandemic. No experience is needed, and we will begin by with an overview of each game. For players who prefer the classic games of strategy, high-quality Go and chess sets will be on hand.
For more information about this event, please contact Harold Henkel at harohen@regent.edu.
1WIRED Staff, “Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre,” Wired (Conde Nast, June 4, 2017), https://www.wired.com/2009/03/mf-settlers/?currentPage=2.
2IAndrew Innes, “What Board Games Can Teach Business,” Harvard Business Review, March 19, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/01/what-board-games-can-teach-business.