To quote Katie Salen Tekinbaş and Eric Zimmerman, the authors of Rules of Play (2004)...
"...it is incredibly important that game design students play games, lots and lots of them. Students should play every possible kind of game, digital and non-digital, contemporary and historical, masterpiece and stinker. Game design students play these games in order to cultivate a historical awareness and critical sensitivity about the kinds of games that have already been designed, to learn how games function to create experiences, and to discover what does and doesn't work about particular design choices." (Salen Tekinbaş and Zimmerman: p20, 2004)
Playing games is the kind of homework I wish I had been set. The following selection from Evan Leed's compilation (2020)
Deduction Games
- Codenames - See CodenamesGame.com the official site. Share link, no sign up involved. No cheating possible (can’t peak at key card).
Drawing Games
- Telestrations. Sketch what you see and guess what you saw. Quick intro videos short intro - https://youtu.be/Hcdj4GO16IA or long intro - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhAQg05M4ww
- DrawPhone.tannerkrewson.com Simple, just share game code. Can adjust timer, can’t draw in colour.
- brokenpicturephone.com (Broken picture phone) Simple, share room code. No timer, people’s “books” visible backlog.
Word Games
- Just One - see OneWord.games. Share room name. Don’t have to sign up.
- Articulate - cards online for people to play during the pandemic
