Teacher skills beyond the long hard stare.

by Uncategorized

Photo by Liam Booth

As a teacher of 17 years I amassed an array of skills which I fully expected to be reasonably useless in my new business. In my eighth year as Cards or Die I’m realising how many of those skills have supported me in creating fun and inclusive events. So here are my teacher skills that make my events awesome!

Eyes in the back of my head.

    It’s a cliche but as a teacher it’s one of the first survival skills that you develop. You can sense rather than see the missile that’s about to be launched and intervene in ways that seem almost psychic. Nowadays I’m not so worried about missiles. But the ability to immediately spot the moment that someone goes off task means that I have an uncanny knack of showing up at your table as soon as you get stuck! It’s like I’m finely tuned into the sound of you debating a rule and the rustling of the rule book pages. Often someone is just leafing through the rule book when I pop up and ask what they’re stuck on – I haven’t escaped the teacher vocabulary! Occasionally I’m just another pair of eyes on the rule book but usually I can answer your question and get you back into the game straightaway.

    Teaching Shakespeare to Year 9 on a windy afternoon in Barnsley.

    I know when I’ve lost you, even before your eyes glaze over. If you’ve ever encountered school kids on a windy day you’ll know they go a bit feral. Hearing, then seeing your class arrive as though they’ve been shot out of a cannon is one of my least favourite things. However my most favourite thing used to be the time 10 minutes after that when they were enjoying Shakespeare, really getting stuck in to a bit of Macbeth. To do that I’ve learnt to adapt my teaching to meet different learning styles in a group.

    The difference is, there used to be 32 people to engage and now there’s only 4 or 5 at a time. It means that when I teach games I’m watching people too and gauging their attention and reactions. I sometimes give a whole overview of the game and other times just get you playing immediately – although the latter approach demands a lot of trust. Often some of the group want to just get stuck in but one or two people will be cautious, unwilling to do something ‘wrong’. I balance this by including the reset option – we play a round with you just playing any card or moving to any space and then we score and if one person is way behind the other, we start again – but – hopefully this time you know what you’re doing! In this first go I always allow take backs – if you didn’t know what you were doing why would I force you to stick to that decision. We can reset anyway. Then there’s the stage between those two. I tell you a bit, you play a bit – I reappear at some point and add some rules in. Or, come back when you need to score it. Personally I like just enough detail so I can start playing. I learn games best through doing. I’d be interested to hear how you learn new games best.

    It’s also about flexibility. Being flexible does not come naturally to me. If I have made a plan, I want to stick to it. Having said that, I have binned meticulously and painstakingly prepared lessons part way through because 32 kids looked like their souls were dying. I’m never going to make you play something that you’re not having fun with. If it’s not fun – ditch it! It doesn’t matter how long we spent setting it up, if we’re having a terrible time it needs to go back in its box.

    Books for the reluctant reader.

    When I was a teacher my response to the claim that anyone didn’t like reading was ‘you just haven’t found the right book yet.’ I had to become skilled at recommending the right book for the individual and the class. Of course at my events I come across less people who don’t want to be there so I’m starting at a much easier entry point! I’ve never once resorted to ‘It’s the law. If you don’t want to do it you’ll need to write to the government and complain.’ Not yet, at least. Just as I got to know lots of books – now I know loads of games so I can ask you a few questions and match you to something just for you.

    More commonly it’s that people don’t know where to start with a game – it’s ok, I do. The choice of games can be overwhelming but then that’s what I’m there for – I can teach or recommend games based on what you’ve enjoyed or not enjoyed in the past. When people arrive at events and say ‘we’re knackered’, ‘we’ve had a really long day’. Or, ‘we haven’t seen each other for ages so realistically we’re going to do a lot of chatting’ I’m able to give them a game that suits them.

    I bring a frankly ridiculous amount of games along but it’s so that I’ve always got you covered for whatever you are in the mood for. Often the game we want to play depends on mood and headspace. I’m not going to sit and play a two hour strategy game when I’m tired or my brains not fully on. In fact, at that point I want something familiar, easy but satisfying. There’s an irritating trend where game enthusiasts bash other people’s choice of game – it’s too easy, too light, not crunchy enough (whatever that means), it’s an old game, there’s too much luck… the list goes on. As far as I’m concerned all of that can get in the bin. If teaching, teaches you anything it’s that you really can’t keep everybody happy and I’m not going to stand for anyone yucking anyone else’s yum. It smacks too much of cliquey playground bullying for my liking.

    Bonus Autism Skills!

    I can’t write a blog post that shouts about my own strengths without pausing to applaud the hitherto unacknowledged role my autism has played in the business. I only got diagnosed last year to the complete surprise of no one at all. Now when people ask me ‘How do you remember all these rules?’ I just say ‘I’m autistic’.

    One of my favourite skills (which hopefully some of you have experienced) is you ask me for a game in the vaguest possible way – e.g ‘we played it three months ago at Archive. It’s a card game. With animals … or maybe plants…’ and I accurately identify it. I’ve attached a screen shot of a particular favourite. It was a card game called ‘…and then we died.’ There was no bag! I always love it when people request games for events – it helps me to pack. Plus, it often gives me an opportunity to play ‘guess the game’ which is always fun!

    Text reads: Hello, I have a random question for you! We once played a game with you years ago and we can’t remember what it was. It was for a really big group of people and there were words in a bag that you had to put together and it made some kind of story. Do you have any idea what it is? We’d love to play it again.

    Doctor Seuss once said ‘It’s fun to have fun but you have to know how’. Many people hate organised fun but in reality some organisation helps the fun along. I have a spreadsheet with all my different games on to help you choose games for your event. I say that as though that was the sole purpose all along – actually I just wanted a detailed record myself. I might not be able to tell you where I’m going to be on any specific date (I’m sure you’ve experienced me looking on my own website to answer your dates questions!) but I can tell you all about my games – what it’s like, why you might enjoy it, how you play it, what it’s similar to, where I got it, why I got it …

    All this to say that when you book Cards or Die really what you are booking is me. Me – an ex-teacher, grammar nerd who decided to learn all about boardgames. To quote Lydia Deetz ‘I myself am strange and unusual’ and if I’m the right amount of strange and unusual for you – let’s work together! I know that pressing publish on this blog will be harder than many of my previous ones because I’ve talked about myself in glowing terms – something I don’t do.

    Finally, if you do have that one person who’s cheating or bending the rules the long hard stare is available. You know, as an option.

    White woman with long dark hair. She is smiling. She holds a pile of boardgames in front of her.

    Boardgames and Me

    by Uncategorized

    I know the rules to over 500 different boardgames.

    After leaving teaching 7 years ago, I started my boardgames business – I take a selection of boardgames along to weddings, parties, pubs, team building, festivals and corporate socials and then I teach and recommend games to people. The initial aim was to get more people playing boardgames together. It soon became apparent that boardgames are a great tool for tackling social isolation.

    Reading the rules is the most boring bit of playing games so I decided that I should learn all the rules, that way people can play straightaway. It also means no time is wasted arguing over how games are played or what the rules mean. I’ve described my brain as a dilapidated mind-palace. Only the boardgames room is still intact!

    I grew up playing boardgames with my much older siblings (there’s a twelve year gap between me and my nearest sister). It was a way to spend time with them despite the age gap: a fun activity we could share. In the 80s we had about 5 games in the cupboard Connect 4, Guess Who, Kan-U-Go, Boggle and Escape from Atlantis. It was enough. Whereas now there are so many more titles available – I like to collect unusual ones that I think people might not know.

    When we went on holiday we always took a pack of cards. We used to play card games in the caravan – gambling for pennies. If we played outside the caravan Mum made us take a box of counters she’d bought so that people wouldn’t think we were gambling. I still have that box of shiny red counters.

    I did an event at an old people’s home and one of the staff pointed out two women who ‘never join in. They’ve got dementia. They just sit – they’re fine.’ I took them Connect 4 and set it up in front of them, they picked up the counters and took turns slotting them in. When it was full, they emptied it and took turns again. Neither of them spoke, they just played. It’s moments like that which convince me of the power of boardgames.

    I realised that it wasn’t just me who had fond childhood memories of playing boardgames together. Part of my collection is retro and vintage games and people love reminiscing – they had the exact same copy or they always played it at their grandma’s.

    Far from being a dying hobby, the boardgames industry is growing year on year. The global boardgames market estimated to be worth between $12 and $13 billion. The pandemic played its part in encouraging us to put down our phones and reconnect and that’s what boardgames enable us to do. 

    I get a lot of people coming on their own to my events. The prospect of going to an event on your own can be daunting. Because you are sharing an activity you have a ready-made topic of conversation, the requirement for eye contact is significantly reduced because it’s fine to listen and play while looking down at your hand of cards or the board. I’m always delighted when people come on their own to my events because I know how much it takes.

    I absolutely love teaching people boardgames and listening to the laughter, the heated discussions, and seeing people connecting over a game. I’m so lucky to have been able to turn my hobby and my geeky ability to learn lots of rules into my job!

    2024-07-18 22.50.55

    Monopoly and More: Waddingtons Board Games

    by Uncategorized

    As part of Heritage Week this year I ran an event celebrating all things Waddingtons. Waddingtons started life as a printers – initially focusing on printing theatre programmes. They moved onto playing cards and then boardgames. I have a collection of around 50 Waddingtons games and these are some of the ones we played on the night:

    Waddingtons Playing Cards

    These gorgeous card decks are both from 1933. The first one comes in a little book titled ‘Idle Moments’

    Cards were often associated with gambling which was frowned upon in many households. Storing them in this bible like case would be a way of hiding them from prying eyes. When I googled this case a similar one came up entitled ‘Let us play’ which is brilliant.

    Both decks have an ornate ace of spades. When stamp duty on playing cards was introduced in the early 1700s, each printing house had to buy their Ace of Spades stamp from the government bearing the insignia of the printing house. The elaborate designs made forgeries more difficult. The tax remained in place until 1960. I always look for the Ace of Spades in vintage packs.

    They are both linen finish and have clearly been well loved. A friend also found me a Waddingtons book of card games which is the perfect accompaniment to all my playing cards.
    Waddingtons did also do specific games like Newmarket and Bezique where you get the cards and tokens needed for that game along with the rules.

    Cluedo Super Sleuth

    I found Cluedo Super Sleuth in a charity shop and it’s brilliant. Cluedo was one of Waddingtons best sellers and Cluedo Super Sleuth is very similar but it’s different enough. I’m confident that if you love Cluedo you’ll love this.

    Before I tell you what I loved about it let’s take a moment to remember how Cluedo plays. You start by placing 3 cards in an evidence envelope: a murderer, a weapon and a location. Then, you deal out the rest of the cards to the players (meaning, despite what it says on the box, you need at least 3 players). You then roll dice and move from room to room asking one player at a time if they have a certain weapon, murderer or location in their hand. By a process of deduction and elimination you can work out what is in the envelope.

    In no particular order here are the good bits:

    • it plays 2-6 people
    • cool mini figures
    • you start with no cards so you can’t rule anything out until you’ve collected some clues. That means you don’t just move from room to room repetitively trying to rule things out.
    • the rooms are revealed during the game and each room contains clues and item cards which you can use to help you investigate
    • there are non-player characters: a dog, a butler and the detective. They can both help and hinder your investigations and can be used to obstruct other players.
    • event cards which can be good or bad are included. Most of which allow you to move up to six spaces on that turn.
    • the dice has a 3, 4, 5, 6, and two event symbols which means you move around the board much faster
    • the magnifying glasses actually work
    • it uses all the familiar characters, weapons and rooms as well as three additional rooms.

    Goosebumps – Shrieks and Spiders Game

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m as distressed as you that games from 1995 are in the vintage section of the charity shop but I loved the Goosebumps series so I bought it anyway. This is a good, silly, fun game with pictures from the popular stories. Each person flips over their top card and if anyone reveals a skeleton then you all grab a spider. But… there’s one less spider than there are players, so one person loses a token from their board. Lose all 4 and you’re out. It’s super quick to learn and play and it comes with plastic spiders – halloweentastic!

    Scoop

    Scoop by Waddingtons is from 1955. (Proper vintage!) Race to fill the front page of your newspaper and make sure your stories get approval from the Editor using the special telephone. There are so many things to love about this game:

    • All the adverts are based on actual advertisements from the time
    • The news stories are complete so one of the joys is reading the stories to everyone as you add them to your paper
    • the telephone! once you have enough cards to collect a story you ‘ring’ the editor (slide the dial along and back revealing in the window whether you’ve been successful or not)

    Things which are not so loveable is the arbitary payment for the person who fills their page first. This can massively skew the game. It basically means if you finish first you win while the actual win condition depends on you carefully selecting stories to get the most money. Despite that it is a lovely game and a proper slice of history.

    Mastermind (1984)

    I had always thought Mastermind was by Invictus games. The copy I had as a child pictured a man who looked a bit like Magnus Magnerson in a black swivel ‘Mastermind’ chair with an attractive woman draped around him. This led me to have completely different expectations of the game- assuming it was a really difficult quiz game. The Waddingtons box cover was much clearer (and less sexist which is always a bonus) showing the game – the multi coloured pegs to make a pattern with and the board. If you have a moment to google Grand Mastermind by Invicta that’s got even more entertaining box art!

    To play mastermind, one player makes a pattern with the pegs and hides it behind the screen. The other player then places coloured pegs into the board at the far end. The small black and white pegs are used to indicate only whether a correct colour has been used in the right or wrong place. Using that information the player must deduce over as few turns as possible the combination hidden behind the screen.

    It’s basically wordle. There is a word version of it which is much easier than the colour version – I find it too easy given the time it takes to sort and set up.

    Captain Scarlet (1967)

    Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons describes itself as a co-operative game which I was quite excited about as I felt that co-operative games where you work together to solve a puzzle or defeat a common foe were a modern concept.

    In the first half of the game you all make your way across Europe in your little cars passing through famous cities like Aberdeen, Maryport, Grimsby and Cardigan Bay (some of which are in the right place on the map). Every so often you land on a space which requires you to read a Mysteron card which invariably impedes your journey. Despite the fact this seems like it should be a race – it isn’t. There is no mention of a win condition nor is there any suggestion of how we are working together to achieve this aim.

    But then, once you’ve reached that destination – there’s a second part where you have to get to a different place but this time according to the rules you both do and don’t have to follow a route detailed on the route card you are given. I’m still hazy on the co-operative element and the purpose of all this driving about. It is hilariously bad.

    For a long time I had this game with no rules and honestly, part of me thinks it was better that way!

    But still, I love the weird quirky map and the odd mysterons cards. House rule it to within an inch of its existence and you might even have a fun game.

    Pit (1909)

    My version of Pit is a Parker Bros game, Waddingtons also produced a version of it. Waddingtons and Parker Bros worked closely together. It was Parker Bros who introduced Waddingtons to Monopoly. My copy is from the late 70s (you can tell by it’s gorgeous brown and orange colour scheme) but the game itself has been around a lot longer – it originated in 1909. Based on the trading pit, players shout what they wish to trade and frenetically swap cards until they can corner the market on their chosen crop by collecting a full set. This version comes with a bell which signals the opening and closing of trading. You can also play with the bear and the bull; a wild card and a penalty card.

    You can play round by round where you get a winner each time or you can use the scores on the cards to play over a series of rounds. Playing over a series of rounds really ups the ante as you will want to collect higher value cards even if they aren’t the cards in your starting hand.

    Either way, there’s a reason you can still buy copies of it today – it’s a fast, fun, noisy game – great for larger groups.

    Even in the last few weeks I’ve added some more Waddingtons games to my collection. They produced so many brilliant and iconic games over the years. I’d love more opportunities to bring them along to events – get in touch if you’d like to play any at one of my events.

    Reads Happy International Women's Day #inspireinclusion

    Celebrating Women in Boardgames

    by Uncategorized

    This year one of the ways I’m marking the day is by celebrating the achievements of 8 of my favourite female board games designers. Of course, there are many, many more than 8 brilliant female boardgames designers and as soon as I started writing I immediately thought of some more – I have stuck to 8 but please shout me with the ones I missed.

    2023-10-21-18.21.13

    What is Mindfulness?

    by Uncategorized

    What is Mindfulness? Mind defines ‘Mindfulness’ as: ‘a technique you can learn which involves noticing what’s happening in the present moment, without judgement. You might take notice and be aware of your mind, body or surroundings.’ That’s it. There is no specific activity you have to do – I love yoga, I use guided meditation from time to time, I dance and I try to sit in the garden and drink a cup of tea most days. And, of course I play boardgames. It doesn’t have to cost the earth and mindfulness looks different for everyone. I thought I’d tell you a bit about what it looks like for me in terms of boardgames. I’d love to hear what it looks like for you.

    2023-05-24-11.43.39

    3 Games to Play Instead of Chess.

    by Uncategorized

    Obviously, by all means play Chess. Chess was fascinating even before the suggestion of using vibrating devices for clues. Chess sets are ubiquitous and the Queen’s Gambit TV series brought with it even more popularity with games stores having to order in extra sets in. The sets themselves can be things of beauty or whimsy. The one pictured above, I found in a charity shop and it’s just beautiful. There are sets for every interest and fandom – we also own a Star Wars set. But it’s not just aesthetically pleasing, it is the ultimate game of wits, tactics and strategy. It’s the game many people feel duty bound to pass on to their children or display proudly in their home. And while there are many variants of Chess itself, if you enjoy Chess or like the idea of it but really haven’t got time to deliberate over which piece to sacrifice next then these suggestions are for you…

    Hive
    1. In Hive, like Chess, one of you plays black and one white; each piece moves uniquely and it is mastering the interaction of those abilities that will win you the game. Every decision you make in Hive counts and while each piece moves differently, a lot of the bugs move in an intuitive way. Your aim is to ensure the opponent’s Queen is surrounded by bugs (they don’t all have to be yours). It’s quick to play and fairly quick to learn (I kept a cheat sheet on hand to remind what each bug does which helped). It gorgeously chunky and tactile and has no board making it portable and great to play wherever you are.
    Quarto by Hachette Games
    1. Quarto is more accessible than Chess but similarly strategic and tactical. It feels more akin to Connect 4 but is fiendishly difficult as you can connect 4 in 8 different ways. (Having said that I’ve played people who make Connect 4 fiendishly difficult!) As is a bit of a theme with my games it is pretty and tactile. Like a Chess set it could easily be left out on display and picked up for a quick game. In the picture you can see the small set but there is a larger one that is delightfully chunky. The real kicker with this one is that on your turn you select a piece for your opponent to place. That means that if you win, you get to hand your final victorious piece to the loser and they have to place it in the winning position. Perfect if you’re ‘quite’ competitive.
    Patchwork.
    1. Patchwork is very different from my last two recommendations. There is some degree of randomness here in that the layout of the patches differs each time and what you can afford from your choices is going to be limited. However, I don’t think that detracts from the intelligence of the game. You can still be strategic but will have to rely much more on tactical decisions and perhaps the ability to adapt your strategy. I would argue that, that is just as challenging. Also, this is a spatial puzzle and less fiercely competitive than the other games. You will still need to gauge what your opponent will do to determine what you should do but going for screwing them over can easily backfire, leaving you with patches you don’t really want. Here you are trying to maximise your buttons (end score) by tessellating shapes and filling your board. Empty spaces carry a penalty. By now you can probably see a theme in my recommendations. They are similar not only in brain power but are all tactile and nice to look at. In patchwork you earn buttons to spend on more patches and to count as victory points at the end. Obviously I have replaced the cardboard tokens with real buttons – ah but were they fabric covered buttons? Why yes of course. There are lots of other brilliant two player strategy games like Abalone, Quixo, Quoridor, Qawale, Connect 4 as well as Chess of course. Come along to an event and try them out.