Since early summer, we have been updating all of our games from the ‘Barometer’ and ‘Bubbles' concepts, which means that they are more approachable than ever before. This week, we have moved on to update games from the ‘Cycle’ concept and expect to finalize the changes in August.

The changes that we are implementing to most games are:

New stakeholder comments: Our new system for stakeholder comments when selecting choices will no longer based on the exact position of the stakeholder but instead be depending on what option was selected. This will make it easier to control what feedback stakeholders provide to the players at any given moment of a game.

Stakeholder movement: To help put the Game Builder tool to good use, we are updating game movement so that everything that happens in-game can be read off of the movement sheet. This will result in fewer “random” incidents and more intentional movement for stakeholders if their personality profile fits the option selected. We are maintaining key features in games such as stakeholder ‘M’ being inactive for a while in our most popular games.

Dynamic movement (Bubbles and Barometer): To help make the two game concepts more attractive, we have made efforts to add wider swings of movement to games that previously appeared a little bland in comparison to others. Many games from these two concepts will now have more dynamic movement patterns.

Game- and chapter introductions: We have long been wanting to remove “clutter” from our games and now we have the chance. Most games will have fewer irrelevant information screens and videos, but the story will remain intact.

Removed ‘guess the style’: Previously, we had an obligatory exercise in Barometer games where players had to guess leadership styles based on a range of statements - these exercises have been removed to help players focus on the game and their approach to it.
 

Adding a changelog: Each updated game will have a ‘changelog’ appear in the description of the game. This information is not available to players but will be visible when you test a game or add it to a session of yours.

In practice:

There are multiple reasons for the changes, but the primary one is that we want to ensure that copying and editing our games using the Game Builder tool is as easy as possible. If you are using the Game Builder, you will see that it will become notably easier to understand- and control game movement.

We will soon be launching an AI-assisted game builder tool, which requires us to make these changes - we are looking forward to providing this opportunity to you.

The changes to stakeholder movement and comments will result in games that are more direct with the players. Options that seek to reduce resistance will no longer select from a pool of stakeholders but rather target specific stakeholders. This will lead to games where players can be more intentional with their actions and, to a larger extent, actively use the description of their stakeholders to identify the right approach to them.

All in all, we have aimed to provide quality-of-life changes to our games that we believe will help both players and superusers like yourself to better grasp the workings of our games.