Play On! - Dead of Winter
Frost bite, wounds, hunger, infection, betrayal, and sacrifice: these are the horrific realities of leading a group through the unyielding hardships of the zombie apocalypse. Now add surviving the harsh climate changes of winter to the mix, and you have a recipe for utter disaster. Dead of Winter is a complex, multi-player, and semi-cooperative modular board game that incorporates classic elements of the survival horror genre. The game can play up to six people with each person in control of a group of 2 or more survivors sheltered within the confines of an old factory known as The Compound. The goals of the game are ever-changing as the game provides a variety of scenarios to play through ranging from easy to hard in difficulty. No matter the scenario or challenge level, the theme of survival is prevalent and the win conditions and lose conditions remain the same.
In order to win the game, you must complete both the main objective of the group and your personal, hidden objective. The main objective is open and available for all players to reference and add cards to in the hopes of completing the objective. The hidden objective is kept secret from all other players and must be completed in addition to the main objective in order for a player to win. The complication here is that within the midst of players there lurks one betrayer within the hidden objective cards held by the players. The betrayer does not want other people to win the game and will work throughout the entirety of game play to make sure the overall group does not find success. While this may seem like a treacherous hurdle to overcome, it in fact is not the worst obstacle that must be overcome as the game unfolds.
There is only one way to win the game: by completing your objectives. However, there are countless ways to lose the game, even before the betrayer has a chance to do their damage. Per the typical zombie game, you can die from zombie bites and infection, but what makes this game unique is its accurate depictions of death from things that are normally considered mundane outside of the apocalypse. For instance, you can die slowly from exposure to the elements. You can succumb to disease if trash cards build up to critical levels in The Compound. You can suffer and perish from prolonged hunger. And death awaits those who are unable to overcome conflict with aggressive survivors.
February 2nd, 2017 should have been just like any other Ground Hog’s day: inconsequential. Friends were invited over for a play through of this newly acquired cooperative game where pleasant conversation ensued and the twelve page manual was thoroughly inspected and questioned for understanding. With no knowledge of who or if there was a betrayer among us, the three of us set out together to accomplish our common objective. It was clear from the first moments of crises that this game was heavily against us. Within just four turns, The Compound was overrun with zombies, the survivors were running low on supplies, and the turn tracker was already halfway gone. Up until this point, conversation was focused on asking whose characters had the best types of abilities for different scenarios and searching actions and providing each other with ideas for how to solve our mounting issues. We alternated between being passive, active, and apprentice players within those first few turns as we shared and built on each others’ in game and out of game knowledge, as demonstrated in the reading by Stevens this week. As it became clear that there was a traitor in our midst, we began offering up less information to each other and focused on our own hidden objectives. This, too, mirrored the reading this week in the section about the use of cheat codes. Though none of us were cheating, our reputations as friendly dwindled as evidence came forward of someone’s lack of integrity. Accusations were thrown around, more evidence was presented, and still there was no clear idea of who could possibly be betraying the group with ill attempts to sabotage the win conditions. Little did anyone know that I was the betrayer.
The game itself was incredibly difficult when it came to trying to overcome the lose conditions of the board. For me, it was ten times more difficult as I had to conceal my betrayer identity and work harder to accomplish my personal win conditions. I found it very difficult after some time to conceal my true identity as my card had four lines of extra instruction, and if I peaked at my card I was accused of being unfaithful to the group. The design of this particular aspect is very poor as it can “out” the betrayer who has a hard time committing their card to memory and has to peak periodically. As the game moved forward, I kept asking myself how I could conceal my identity without helping the group too much. During these times, I found myself contributing to the group less and learning more about my friends’ body language and between the lines talking. What felt like a loss of control to my friends, felt like an even bigger loss of control to me as I had limited options for accomplishing my goal and staying concealed. In the end, nobody won, not even me.
Every interaction in the game helped contribute to our understanding of the group dynamic as it evolved and devolved over time. During different parts of the game, though, the crises cards became a repetitive action that inhibited our creativity in problem-solving together. These cards depleted our hands after every turn and left us with little to no options for solving group issues. While this does well to demonstrate the urgency and detriments of the apocalypse, it did little to move game play forward as a team. However, this did encourage each of us to get creative being independent problem-solvers in order to resolve issues like zombie bites, frost bite, and the occasional rogue survivor encounter. Another interesting aspect of the game was the voting system used to determine important group decisions. Options would be read from cards during turmoil and without consultation the group had to vote with thumbs up or down. Majority took the win in these cases, but the lack of consultation during these times created the need to draw off of previous interactions during play in order to have an idea of how another member might vote.
So what does all of this play have to do with learning? For me, this game embodied all of the good and bad traits for what it means to be a part of a team with common goals. In traditional style teaching, group work is given out in the hopes that collaboration and communication will unfold organically – which is not always the case. This game could be used as a great way to teach necessary group working skills as it pits the group against common foe and tragedies. It even intentionally adds drama with the use of a betrayer, and is a swift lesson in providing opportunities for teammates to overcome internal struggle and sabotage, as well
If you'd like to learn more about the game play and see it in action, check out the video below.
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