To Play is to "Enjoy Inconvenience" — "Mysterium Park"
In conjunction with this month's Autumn Game Market, a portion of my co-authored book with Takuya Ono, "Society Changes Through Board Games", has been published on Toyo Keizai Online.
The first installment and the third installment are also available for your viewing, but I would especially appreciate it if you could take a look at the second installment, which covers "The Way My World Looks".
Players are dealt several small cards with words written on them like a "game." Then, the lead player reads a prompt card, such as "The latest bestseller: 'Society Changes Through XX'." Everyone except the lead player chooses a card from their hand that they think would be 'interesting' if placed in the XX slot, plays it face down, and the cards are shuffled. The lead player then chooses the one they find most interesting, and that player scores points.
(Omitted)
Since you only need to play a card, even people suffering from depression can play a comedy improv game together. And sometimes, a card played by someone who is usually so quiet they are almost mute turns out to be the funniest, drawing laughter from everyone. Even those who lack confidence in their communication skills can become top-tier comedians within the game.
Games often have an image that "the skilled (strong) player wins", and while aiming for a world championship in that direction is one way to enjoy them, that alone can make it hard for people who say, "I'm not good at this," to join in.
In such cases, it is helpful to be able to present works that "can be enjoyed even if there is a difference in ability." In fact, I think there could be an index for measuring the appeal of a game based on how wide a range of participants it can cover.
I recently had the opportunity to play just such a game. It is one of my personal favorites among communication-based works: "Mysterium Park." It was released in the fall of 2020, but it seems it is still available for purchase.
To narrow down the crime scene,
you visit guided by "picture hints"
This is a simplified, portable version of the hit game "Mysterium," which was "fun but long!"
Simply put, it is a game of "conveying pictures with pictures." "Dixit," which Kaho Miyake introduced in "Society Changes Through...", was a game where you "give a title to a picture and play a picture that fits that title," meaning you converse in the order of image -> language -> image, but this work is image only.
The setting is a circus touring America, but the lead player (the one giving the prompts), the circus director, has been murdered and is dead from the start. Therefore, they cannot speak, and gestures are strictly prohibited; they can only communicate by handing out cards with illustrations on them.
The followers (the ones answering, 1-5 people) are psychics visiting the circus, and they are handed hint cards consisting only of images from the lead player—"messages from the murdered director appear" in each of their crystal balls. Using those as clues, they visit the appropriate people involved, gather testimony, and close in on the culprit (header photo).
The lead player hands out cards while entrusting them with the message "Visit this person!," but the number of cards is tricky. It would be easy if they could just show one card and say, "The answer is the cashier!," but such a chance almost never happens. Furthermore, the lead player cannot replenish their hand with new cards beyond what they have handed out, so they want to hand out as many as possible to cycle through their hand, but if they hand out too many, the followers get confused.
Once you clear the 1st stage of "guessing the person" using only picture hints, you move on to the 2nd stage of "guessing the location." Finally, if you can clear the 3rd stage, where you "guess the combination" of the narrowed-down suspect and crime scene from three choices, within the specified number of turns, everyone wins, including the lead player and the followers.
During the game, the followers are allowed to consult with each other and there is no competition, so even if you are meeting for the first time, strategy meetings like "The meaning of that picture is probably..." become lively, deepening friendships!
you are limited to two hints.
And the trick is that you
must not say whether the hint is for the person or the location
(The correct answer was option 1)
I think this game is profound because it embodies the philosophy that to play is to "enjoy inconvenience".
Honestly, if the rules allowed the lead player to speak, they could just say, "The answer is this," and it would be over, making it very easy to win the game. But if you ask whether that is fun, it is super boring, isn't it?
Or, consider a standard competitive game. During play, of course, you think, "I want a strong card!" But if it contained a super-powerful, cheat-level invincible card that guaranteed victory if you just drew that one card, you would lose your motivation, right? You would end up thinking, "What is this? It's just a game of luck."
(By being forced by the rules not to speak) becoming inconvenienced is, in other words, playing by artificially lowering your abilities, but the fun of play is born from that.
How to transform constraints into enjoyment is where a game designer's skill is shown, which is why excellent games contain clues for overcoming meritocracy.
In contrast, so-called 'trash games' are those where the path to victory is predetermined—where you can 'win with just this' or 'cannot win otherwise'—and you have no choice but to repeat the winning strategy like a menial task. That is why authors of self-help books like 'How to Win at Life!' often play the role of turning society into a trash game, in reality (whispering).
That said, a winning strategy isn't found so easily. While constantly replying 'That's just your opinion, isn't it?' to everything said to you is certainly a winning move, there's really only one person in Japan who can pull off that style. Any copycats after the first one are just cringeworthy.
Thus, those who missed out on their share jumped on the 'COVID game' and 'Ukraine game' played on social media starting in 2020, which set the rule that 'if you follow an expert and shout I'm the same as the expert!, you win.' But beyond that, there was only the end result of having voluntarily turned daily life into a trash game, only to reach a game-over when the expert's predictions turned out to be wrong (crying).
Where can we find hints to rise up from such a miserable state now?
This is an excerpt article exploring ways to think in a fun way through board games. After you have taken a look, if you would like, I would be happy if you could first reach for the co-authored book by Mr. Ono and myself, starting with the preface below!