Learning from By Curt Covert
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The SPILL
he SPILL by Smirk and Dagger Games is a cooperative game about an oil rig in trouble. Every turn, more and more black oil dice are dropped down the unique four-way dice tower and spill into different quadrants of the ocean, where they begin to threaten marine life. Your response team must contain the spill, remove what oil you can from the water and rescue the sea animals before the catastrophe becomes uncontrollable. If that sounds a bit like a blend of Pandemic and Castle Panic, with its reverse tower defense mechanic, you’d be right – and it is tense and fun to play. If it sounds like echoes of the Gulf Disaster of 2010, you’d be right again. In creating the game, Andy and I ended up learning a lot. Obviously, we wanted the experience to be fun, but also very in keeping with real world situations. Interestingly, during our campaign we were approached by two backers who work in the oil cleanup and hazard prevention industry. Both commented that the game, abstracted
and fun as it is, does a remarkable job of simulating what their teams face in these disasters. So much so, that they plan to use the game as an on-boarding tool for new employees! They also told us that in reaction to Deepwater Horizon, many companies and technologies have sprung up to avert or better contain future spills. SWIS (Subsea Well Intervention Services) is one such division that has developed a capping and containment module sitting at the ready on a 747, able to cap a similar well breach in a fraction of the time. But let’s talk about another bit of learning. Back when we released our creation myth storytelling game, “Before there were Stars”, we created a Common Core lesson plan for English and Social Studies. Through them, students could use their imaginations to experience, first hand, how early humans looked up into the night sky and were inspired to tell tales of how the world began. Teachers have been using board games to engage
students and apply learning through nontraditional means for years – and now, particularly through Covid, it became more pervasive than ever. Early in the design process for The SPILL, we saw a similar opportunity to work with educators to create materials for science teachers. Available on our website (see QR code), this Common Core lesson plan and activity guide allows the game to be used as a jumping off point for discussions about how oil and water interact together and extends to man’s impact on his environment. Board games have evolved quite a bit since the old ‘roll and move days’ and so too have game’s involvement in education. Quote/Unquote “Educational Games” have always been deeply stigmatized as a category and generally not fun, from a pure experience point of view. But game-based learning is thriving among educators, using many of the modern board games we know and love. Math, spelling, geography, science, logic… anything really, are all skills that can be found and highlighted in the games we place on our table for fun. In the homeschooling world they coined the term “game schooling.” Games have a lot to teach us emotionally as well, as therapeutic tools. I was surprised to find Cutthroat Caverns was being used in this way, but then, remembered that I had built it as a bit of a social experiment to look at the line between competitive and cooperative play – and how people react and recover from those interactions. Scan the games on your shelf. Give them a closer look. You’ll soon realize there is something to be learned from every game – in addition to having a great time. Curt Covert is the owner of Smirk and Dagger Games with a 19 year line of games designed to cause a stir at the table.
AROUND THE table • Q4 2022
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The SPILL SND 1008 / MSRP $49.99 42
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smirkanddagger.com
11/2/22 2:00 PM
