The article made me think about my own son\u2019s recent efforts. Knowing that I like both games and bones, he created a most excellent game for Father\u2019s Day:<\/p>\n
Skele-rush<\/em> is a madcap romp around a cemetery where you trade bones for tiles and try not to fall into an open grave. It fulfilled all of the developmental lessons Croll mentioned in his article – it is clearly creative and it took him days to make, he clearly thought through how it would work in terms of getting the balance of bones to rewards right (and included random cards to add surprise and a couple of opportunities to steal bones from each other with the Ghoul tile, because, well, who doesn\u2019t like being a bit of a dick). He also spent a lot of time thinking through how people may react to some of the tiles and actions. There\u2019s even an extensive rule book…<\/p>\n Last year I went over the York to take part in a gamification workshop where we thought about how to make board games from our subjects. One talk was by Dr Louise Robinson<\/a> from the University of Derby who created the game Park Life to allow students to explore issues surrounding wildlife conservation<\/a>. We\u2019ve even tried an approach here too, where we asked our newbie undergrads to make board games featuring forensic science. This sort of work supports the development of group work and communication skills, as well as planning and creativity. It got our cohort thinking about the subject from another perspective, which in turn helped them appreciate more deeply the various aspects of forensic science. Clearly we were pioneers, because from next year you can even study Tabletop Game Design as a full undergraduate degree<\/a>.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just children who can benefit from playing board games. Certainly playing games with kids makes you realise that you don\u2019t always have to win to have fun. Especially useful for someone as quietly competitive as me. Although never play Monopoly with my 9 year old, because he will fucking destroy you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, I like playing games. Most people know that by now. And I don\u2019t mean, like, emotional games, although those can also be fun. Like today, when the poor guy valiantly organising nine graduation ceremonies for thousands of students for next week asked if I was ready to read out the names of the graduates, and I told him I was going to wing it. He went very grey. It was very funny. No, I mean board games. I\u2019m thinking of them again now because…<\/span>Continue Reading “Skele-rush! Board games, not bored games…”<\/span> ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/tjuthompson\/files\/2019\/07\/Skelerush2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.tees.ac.uk\/tjuthompson\/files\/2019\/07\/Anya.gif\")
<\/a>