The World Wins

March 4, 2015 10:05 PM

Tonight I came across an old Ted talk by John Hunter, who is the creator of The World Peace Game, where he guides and facilitates his students into solving complex world problems by getting very player to cooperative achieve world peace. Here is the link to the Ted Talk.

Inspire and wanting to know whatever happened with him and the game, I started searching the internet. There are issues with mass producing this game, as the wisdom in the lessons learned is how it is facilitated. Without that wisdom, it could very easily just be another war game. The main theme of collaboration will be lost. He is putting on Summer Camps, but for $1200.00 per person, it really is a stretch for a teacher to learn the finer points of carrying this out in their classrooms.

So the conversation turned to how can we simplify the game and if there is another model out there.

So, here is the question: Are there others games out there where you can only win if everyone wins?

posted by gloturtle to Education (2 answers total)

Probably not quite the answer you're looking for, but I've seen it in this children's game. Essentially a roll and move ahead candyland-style game, but all users must reach the finish before the pigs eat all the food at the picnic. Pigs eat an item each time any player messes up IIRC.

Also, someone else may be able to confirm that Pandemic fits the criteria. It's a really popular board game. I haven't played it but it was explained to me in those terms.
posted by Brodiggitty at 10:36 PM on March 4, 2015

The term you probably want to be searching for is "cooperative [board] games," where the players are playing against the game's rules (although many of the examples in the list, like Dead of Winter, include games where there may be "traitors" working against the other players). The six-hour minipiece nightmare that is Arkham Horror is maybe less obviously about global action–even if it does seem like the in-game individual stakes of individual/team and short-term/long-term gains there are handled more complexly. Something like Pandemic maybe fits the scope of Hunter's "game" more.
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 10:39 PM on March 4, 2015