We have already discussed about board games can become a crucial resource for learning during the growth and developmental phase of a child. Apart from nurturing life and social skills, board games also help to build creativity. This is one of the findings in a recent study which also states that both creative and non-creative board games could help temporarily improve one’s divergent thinking capacity.
Let us look at what classifies under creative and non-creative board games and how they help.
Creative board games often involve drawing, storytelling, or coming up with unique concepts, while non-creative board games mostly focus on strategy and logic.
In creative board games, players need to -
- Generate original ideas, open-ended actions, and storytelling elements
- Combine elements in new ways, or think of innovative ideas to succeed
- Encourage players to think creatively to overcome challenges
- Focus on the originality of solutions or the narrative created during the play
In contrast, in non-creative board games, players need to -
- Rely on established strategies, set actions, and clear decision paths
- Decide move optimally based on set rules, and does not primarily focus on generating new concepts to win
- Emphasizes tactical decision-making within a defined framework
- Focus on achieving a specific goal like accumulating points or reaching a finish line.
Examples of Creative Board Games:
Pictionary: Players draw pictures to represent words or phrases for others to guess.
Dixit: Players describe a card creatively to make others guess which card they are thinking of
The Big Idea: Players combine cards to create unique inventions
Telestrations: Players secretly draw a picture based on a word, then the next person has to write a description of that drawing, and so on
Cranium: A mix of creative challenges including drawing, acting, sculpting, and answering trivia questions
Concept: Players use symbols to communicate a word or phrase to others
Storytelling games like Once Upon a Time: Players collaboratively build a narrative by adding elements to a story or Story Cubes: Players roll dice with different pictures and create a story based on the image
Codenames: Teams try to link words to their secret agent identities through cryptic clues
Examples of Non-Creative Board Games:
Snakes and Ladder/Ludo: Strategic game based on piece movements and tactics to outperform opponents before they do
Monopoly: Players roll dice and acquire properties based on established rules
Scrabble: Players build words using letter tiles with a set point system
Ticket to Ride: Players collect sets of cards to claim routes on a map, following established connection rules
Checkers: A simple strategy game with limited piece movement
Risk: Players conquer territories on a map to dominate the world
Clue/Cluedo: Players try to solve a mystery by identifying the suspect, weapon, and room
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