Informal adult learning and training sessions: playing modern board games in the digital age

ABSTRACT

Board gaming is a popular activity, growing despite all the pressures of digitalization. People are gathering to play socially. Besides this ludic movement, modern board games can be used directly or adapted to achieve other goals beyond entertainment, approaching serious game methods as a modding exercise. This paper describes a process where a facilitator selected a sequence of modern board games (mostly party games) and played them with the employees of an enterprise (design and marketing) during an informal meeting. The games were played in a restaurant, in an environment, testing whether participants could recognize learning and training utility. The game facilitator observed the game dynamics and collected participants’ comments during gameplay and debriefing. Participants recognized the activity as a pleasant learning and training informal session. The author argues that these informal playable learning spaces can be beneficial for institutions that wish to foster them because participants would train, learn, and strengthen social bonds.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult learning
• board games
• informal learning
• post-digital
• serious games

1. Introduction

If some authors state that we live in a golden age of board games(Konieczny, 2019), why are these games still a niche activity? Maybe it is their hobbyist nature that affects overall spreading (Booth, 2021; Sousa & Bernardo, 2019). Nonetheless, board gaming is growing by about 20% a year despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (Matalucci, 2021; Nand, 2021). Is the post-digital (Cramer, 2015) movement able to explain these effects? Are people suffering from over-digitalization in their lives, or are board games now a lot better? Are they providing different social experiences, and informal learning is one of them? We might not be able to answer these questions. However the growth of game releases every year and the money collected on platforms like Kickstarter must mean that these new games are engaging users as never before (Hall, 2022).

When doing an informal online survey about board game trends, we can find some surprising references. A Bloomberg news article for 2018 (Ellwood, 2018) states the trends of playing modern board games among the Wall Street finance community. This phenomenon exemplifies how modern board games are becoming more popular, despite reinforcing them as an elite activity (Booth, 2021), demanding specific skills and considerable resources. Playing these modern board games might not be cheap as a hobby due to the large number of games these gamers tend to gather, but some of these games cost between 20€ to 100€ and can be played by different groups of people multiple times. Doing this group activity is less expensive than, for example, going to see a movie.

Today there are many available modern board games that can engage many different player profiles (Sousa, 2021). There are also many successful cases where these games are transformed into tools for training skills and therapeutics (Estrada-Plana et al., 2020; Rosa et al., 2021a; Sousa, 2020a). These approaches tend to result from light modding process where instructors, teachers, or technical experts adapt the games to reach other goals beyond the entertaining experiences (Castronova & Knowles, 2015; Sousa, 2020b; Sousa & Dias, 2020). If this was this much potential, why are not institutions and organizations using these games more in their activities?

In this paper, the author describes the process for introducing institutions and organizations, or any social work groups, to the benefits of playing modern board games as a social activity that generates informal learning and can train work skills. The proposal is to organize playing sessions to address the organization’s culture and some demanded skills for success. Sessions should be as informal and interactive as possible.

The author delivered a playable experience for a Design and Communication company (institution). The activity was done after a Christmas lunch. The owners of the company asked for something to cheer and foster collaboration among their collaborators. During more than three hours, a variable number of employees participated at different moments, from 13 to 16. It was an informal environment, done in a restaurant, despite being monitored by a facilitator that adapted and set a sequence of games for participants to play. The intention was to explore as much informal play as possible to achieve the purposes of learning and training skills.

2. The popularity of analog games and Geek culture

2.1. Board games in the digital age

Modern board games are not easy to define (Sousa & Bernardo, 2019). Their design is different from mass-market games, although stating the differences is somehow misleading. Most of these definitions are anecdotal because they arrive from hobbyists and the insights of this recent industry. It relates to the fandom culture (Booth, 2021). Terms like mechanics or mechanisms are prone to many interpretations (Sousa et al., 2021). Many jargons can be hard to decode. Eurogames, Amerigames, and many other adjectives might be confusing. Others, like Ameritrash, can even be offensive (Woods, 2012). Regardless of all these varieties, David Parlett defines these new games in simple and revealing ways, stating that they are games where the players are at the center (Parlett, 1999).

Let’s define these new games as those created in the last 30 years. Modern board games result from a hobby movement that desired something else that the mass-market board game offer. Hobby board gamers seek other experiences, richer in decision-making, simulation, narrative, and component quality. The first Wargames (1950s), the Role-Playing games (1970s), the spreading of the Eurogames of the 1990s, and the attraction to collectible games are all part of this modern analog game movement. Modern Board games are games for fans, created for users desiring to dive into new game systems during their free time. Modern board games demand a considerable commitment, investing time (learning) and money (owning), and participating in a cultural movement (knowledge). As stated before, modern board games have been thriving due to digital technologies. Gamers discuss, buy, and organize gatherings through online tools. Game creators heavily depend on digital tools to make and market their games (Booth, 2021).

2.2. Geeks are the new cool people?

Geek culture is popular now. Board and tabletop games are part of this movement popularized in many TV shows like The Big Bang Theory ^TM, Stranger Things ^TM, and many others alike. However, this is not the only reason. The post-digital movement must have some impact (Cramer, 2015). In urban societies, where most of the world’s population lives currently, working daily with digital technology is standard. Social media dominate these societies. Being together, face-to-face, and interacting without interfaces are not as common as in the recent past. These changes may explain why people still make artisanal products as a pastime, visit places, attend live music shows, and prefer paper and pencil writing (Sax, 2016).

It appears that board games are one of the growing activities that deliver unique face-to-face social activities, those many people desire. Most hobbyist players play because of social interactions (Booth, 2021; Kosa & Spronck, 2019; Woods, 2012). This preference is not a direct negative reaction to technology because the percentage of hobbyist players that are IT experts is very high (Kosa & Spronck, 2019), sometimes near 50% of local groups (author’s observation in online and local groups). With the Internet and social media, websites like Board Game Geek (BGG) (www.boardgamegeek.com) are essential to organizing events, sharing information, and spreading the board game movement worldwide.

News articles like those stated previously from Bloomberg of gatherings among elite professionals to play board games are not surprising. What seems more unexpected is that organizations are not using these games in formal and informal ways to strengthen human relationships and train specific skills as much as they might. Because teamwork activities are recurrent training activities, why not use these modern board games to support them? Yet, some efforts to fill this gap have been made recently. There are cases of training companies and universities where these methods have been used (Rosa et al., 2021a, 2021b; Sousa, 2020a). Games can support training skills like collaboration, communication, and creativity, adapting existing games to player profiles to foster engagement (Sousa, 2021).

3. Building informal learning and training spaces with modern board games

Naturally, adults learn with each other while observing and talking (Taylor, 2006). We also learn by summoning our experiences in informal environments. This effect happens even more as adults age (Marsick & Watkins, 2001). Promoting environments where social collaboration and individuals can follow their interests fosters informal learning (Callanan et al., 2011). Institutions aware of these effects benefit from continuous learning and training of their collaborators.

Games are interactive systems where users can play and see the results of their decisions (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). Games tend to be considered informal activities despite all the skills and learning they demand. There are several examples of modding (Abbott, 2019; Sousa & Dias, 2020) ortho games (games for entertaining) (Elias et al., 2012) to became more like serious games (Dörner et al., 2016) as tools to achieve other purposes like learning and training predefined skills. Even though digital games dominate, analog games can serve this purpose since they can be easily modified (Xu et al., 2011; Zagal et al., 2006). Because analog games demand knowing the rules to play and demand player agency to function, the learning potential in social in informal play can be higher (Bartolucci et al., 2019).

If institutions and organizations had more access to information about using modern board games (directly or modified to be serious games) and their potential, this would likely be a more spread practice. However, it is not easy to start using games without previous experience, either for informal or formal professional activities. It requires knowledge to know what games to select, access the games, and someone in charge to design the experiences and facilitate the teaching and debriefing methods these activities require (Crookall, 2010; Sousa, 2022; Sousa & Dias, 2020). One way to start is just having the games, simple ones that at least one person knows how to play. Party games are the most accessible and allow higher player counts (Bartolucci et al., 2019; Sousa & Bernardo, 2019; Woods, 2012). The games could be available at work or in places where workers socialize. Board game cafe places is a worldwide trend (Barbosa, 2021; Harrington 2023; Hipjillah, 2015; Tampubolon, 2019).

After playing modern board games, some players would likely look for other games. A part of them will connect the game experiences with skills and the collective benefits of experiencing these ludic activities.

4. Methodology

Considering the requirements and available resources, the author defined a sequence of play for the session with employees of a design and communication company. The owners of the company and the academic research purposes were the same: to deliver a pleasant experience that could foster human relations, strengthen collaboration, and address the enterprise culture (serious goals of the session). The result was a form of fast event to entertain and promote informal learning among adult co-workers. Undoubtedly, these are complex objectives to measure, which led to testing a simplified method to deal with informality and subjective data interpretation.

The author adopted a light data collection method to avoid imposing long questionnaires (Mayer et al., 2014) on participants. The author was also the facilitator of the game session, which helped adapt and control the engagement levels while addressing the serious goals of the session. Adapting the games in real-time whenever necessary (unplanned modifications) highlighted some advantages of analog serious games (Sousa et al., 2022). The experience established an (informal) serious game experience, resulting from a sequence of games and respective debriefing stages (Rosa et al., 2021a, 2021b). The modifications to the games addressed the company culture and products/services. This approach was inspired by several other cases of modding modern board games as serious games (Castronova & Knowles, 2015; Sousa, 2020b, 2021, 2022).

4.1. Selecting games

The author selected a sequence of games (Table 1 sequence number) with low complexity (above 2.00 according to BGG, which defined complexity from 1 to 5) to be played and played in less than 30 minutes on average.

Table 1. Sequence of played games in the session.

Sequence of play	Name of the game	Adaptation	Purpose
1	Dixit	Each player picks a card without knowing why. Then presents itself based on the card.	Ice-breaking exercise. Sharing personal and informal. Do self-presentation.
2	Happy Salmon	Mixing several copies of the game. Allow the interactions of all players in the room.	Icebreaking with progressive physical activity. Social greetings with other participants.
3	Telestrations	Writing the player’s name, mix the notebooks and get one random. Each player must draw something related to the received person in the notebook.	Think about the colleges and describe them. Recognize others and their characteristics. Exploring how the group sees its members.
4	Fun Employed	Players write funny personal traits in post-its. Then define company roles. Players apply to the job by playing their post-its. All players vote for the best argument.	Self-knowledge. Identifying what are the roles at the company. See how others represent themselves. Training arguments to win the job.
5	Fake Artist Goes to New York	The theme for each round was something to improve in the company.	Foster imagination. Interpretation of other people’s priorities. Training arguments
6	Pantone	Representing images from the clients.	Dealing with graphical representations and creativity. Exploring the company culture.
7	Just One	Guessing the names of the clients	Company culture and memory.

The selection of games fits the type of company at stake. There were several games about drawing (Telestrations and Fake Artist Goes to New York) and a game about color combinations (Pantone). These games provided players with a comfortable context to address the type of work they do daily. The high quality of the Dixit cards also helps to engage the participants used to evaluate and work with graphical images.

Selected games have a collaboration dynamic, being fully cooperative or establishing a timeframe where collaboration is necessary to make the game progress (playing in teams in Pantone and Fake Artist Goes to New York). Playing Pantone and Just One demanded a previous step. It required players to write the names of their clients/projects on post-its that worked as the cards of the objectives for both games.

Besides adapting the games to the type of organization, the sequence of play was intended to deliver the following sequential process: Ice-breaking and self/collective-awareness (games 1, 2, 3 & 4); culture of the institution (games 5, 6, and 6).

4.2. Evaluation and feedback

The evaluation was one of the challenges of the session. It was necessary to measure feedback if the games were delivering what was expected. Questionnaires were not an option in that informal environment, and they would probably break the flow of the games (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009).

The author adopted a method where, after playing the games, a small debriefing and discussion with participants, reflecting the type of played game and the objective of playing that game. Then the participants that wished added a post-it with a comment about the experience of playing that game. This feedback was voluntary and done in a fast way. Approximately 10 minutes to discuss (debrief) and write in the post-its.

The post-its with the comments from the players were grouped by game. This qualitative information was analyzed through the grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014; Farkas et al., 2020; Sousa et al., 2022), defining clusters for the identified dimensions through several iterations (one per game results). Players’ comments lead to the following clusters: collaboration, knowledge, creativity, challenge, fun, and interaction.

Collaboration represented comments about the team and groups. The knowledge included references to self-knowledge, collective learning, and remembering. Creativity was about feelings of discovery and exploring new ideas. The challenge was related to the game’s difficulty. Fun was related to humor, jokes, and pleasant sensations expressed by the players. Interactions were when the players referred to a specific interaction with other players or a group of players.

Besides the data collection in the post-its for each game, the facilitator recorded observation notes during gameplay in a notebook.

5. Playing after lunch among colleagues

The game session started at 3 pm and ended at 6:30 pm. From what the participants described, the lunch was very entertaining, and the expectations were high. The facilitator asked the participants if they played modern board games before. Only two said yes, but even those two players were casual, not hobbyists, representing 12.5% of the participants (n = 16). Dropout players (3 players in total) stated that they left earlier because of personal affairs, not because of the games and the overall process.

The session started with a self-presentation game-based dynamic followed by several games that fostered self and collective awareness. Games demanded different skills, like drawing, storytelling, bluffing, and logic. The last games approached themes related to the company’s business, clients, and projects. The games were modified to achieve these goals (Table 1). This approach transformed commercial ortho games into simple and informal serious games.

5.1. Playing the games

5.1.1. Dixit

The Dixit cards helped to introduce the facilitator and the reason for the session. Each participant picked one card from a display of 200 cards without knowing why. Then the facilitator picked his card and explained that this was for self-presentation, given the example. It used a card to state that he worked with games and believed the games could be used to achieve serious goals. The card had an owl and playable building blocks. After this dynamic, the participants expressed surprise and stated that they picked the cards randomly. However, they all did their self-presentation successfully, engaging with other participants. The presentations generated many humorous cross comments. The introductory self-presentation, supported by Dixit, was not evaluated with post-its because it was just a dynamic, without a scoring system.

5.1.2. Happy Salmon

Three sets of Happy Salmon cards allow playing with a maximum of 18 players (6 players per standard set). Some tables were removed, allowing players to move freely and interact (Figure 1). The noise increased fast. It contrasted with the previous game, where players tried to be silent to listen to the self-presentations. The players won by playing all their cards. But it required finding another player to do the compliments. Players stated in the post-its words like: fun, chaos, loud and noisy, and happiness.

Figure 1. Participants playing Happy Salmon (mixing several decks of cards).

5.1.3. Telestrations

The participants were divided into two groups. The standard version of Telestrations has only eight notebooks. The facilitator used three game sets to have enough notepads for all participants. The players wrote their names in the notebook and made a pile to shuffle all the notebooks. Then players picked one notebook randomly. After this, they did drawings to describe that person’s name on the next page of each notebook. Following the standard rules, players passed the notebooks and alternated between drawings and words related to the previous pages. After all the notebooks were complete (sequences of drawings and names), each person received their notebook again to present the result.

Some drawings and associated names made the groups burst into a collective laugh. It was notorious that some participants were more represented in the notebooks than others. The distribution was not even. Players stated in the post-its words like: fun, very funny, challenging, humor, and way to address personal traits.

5.1.4. Fun Employed

Fun Employed game mechanisms inspired the play. In post-its, the player identified personal traits. The facilitator suggested absurd characteristics as in the original game. Each player wrote five in different post-its. After this, the facilitator asked players what jobs were important in the company. Some examples were: accounts, web designers, social media managers, secretaries, programmers, and salespeople. The participants were divided into two groups. Each player selected one of the traits from their post-its to apply for the job at stake. Then, each group voted for the best candidate.

The level of humor and laughs were high, with several references to the real jobs in the company and the behaviors of each person. Players stated in the comments post-its words like: revealing, fun, self-knowledge, and personal flaws as strengths.

5.1.5. Fake Artist Goes to New York

As in the previous games, in Fake Artist Goes to New York game, it was only necessary to have post-its for writing the secret words and a blank sheet of paper and colored pencils for the game to function. The facilitator asked each player to write something that improve the company. Then, as in the original game, the active player copied their words to multiple post-its, one for each other player, leaving one blank. Each other player got a random post-it. No one would know the player that ignored the words for the round. Starting with the active player, all players talked about the drawings. Like in the original game, they did storytelling after discovering the words at stake and the drawing results. After this, they voted to find the layer that ignored the words when doing the drawings. The voting was done simultaneously by pointing the pens.

The drawings and writing statements identified issues like stock inefficiencies and communication problems as something to address and improve. The players wrote words in the evaluation post-its like: deceived, bluff, fake, team thinking, and doubts.

5.1.6. Pantone

Before playing Pantone, the participants created a pile of post-its with clients’ and project names (more than 30 names). These post-its were used as the objective cards for the Pantone and Just One games. Participants were surprised because they never imagined that having colored cards could support a game, mainly because they deal with sets of colors and Pantone every day. Three players admitted this directly when the facilitator presented the game. Each group played a different copy of the game.

Players guessed right approximately 50% of the played post-its. They admitted the game was surprisingly difficult because they worked with graphical and color representations in their daily activities. Players wrote in the evaluation post-its words like: colors, difficult to communicate, creativity, and challenge.

5.1.7. Just One

Finally, the two groups played Just One. The two groups guessed right 80% of the words in the post-its, building from previous knowledge and memory. Just One was much faster than Pantone, with some rounds below two minutes. It was possible to identify collaborators new to the company. Players wrote in the evaluation post-its words like: easy, memory, team, teamwork, and union.

5.2. General comments to the session

By the end of the game session, the participants were invited to add new post-its to express their overall experience (Figure 2). At this time, some participants had already left (3 participants). It was an informal activity, with no obligation to play any game to the end. Despite this, 13 participants played all the games which can be interpreted as high engagement (81.3%). The session lasted more time (half an hour more) than expected, and participants could leave whenever they desired.

Figure 2. Participants final comments on post-its (translated to English).

5.3. From the experiences to the goals

Although it was an informal play session, playing the selected games was meant to deliver serious purposes. The games were supposed to be pleasant and engaging, but not only that. The play session resulted from combining several different games, each complementing the other. The author planned the session to keep engagement and flow while providing a progressive experience towards the company issues.

The play session achieved its purpose. This experiment shows that it is possible to propose a method to use games in companies, playing them directly or with modifications. The ability of the facilitator to adapt and deliver meaningful debriefing can foster social engagement, team building, and idea discussion as practical examples of application.

Table 2 shows the results from the grounded theory analyses (6 iterations, one per game result) of the qualitative data in the post-its. It expresses percentages of events (statements) associated with the emerged clusters.

Table 2. Concepts (statements) players identified to each game in percentage.

Game	Collaboration (%)	Knowledge (%)	Creativity (%)	Challenge (%)	Fun (%)	Interaction (%)
Happy Salmon	7.69	0	0	34.46	46.15	69.23
Telestrations	14.29	42.86	14.29	57.14	7.14	14.29
Fun Employed	9.09	54.55	27.27	18.18	9.09	18.18
Fake Artist goes to New York	33.33	6.67	6.67	46.67	20.00	60.00
Pantone	7.14	50	14.29	21.43	14.29	14.29
Just One	35.71	42.86	0	7.14	14.29	14.29

In Telestrations, players referred to the challenge dimension (57.14%). The humor and positive interactions were notorious by observation. But the challenge of drawing and guessing their colleges affected the experience. The challenge was so high that the references to the fun dimension were the lowest (7.14%). Even the creativity dimension was not as high as the facilitator expected, showing a value of 14.29%.

Table 2 shows that the fun element was present in all games. Surprisingly, the second-lowest references to the fun dimension appeared in Fun Employed (9.00%). The facilitator observed a high level of humor and laughter during this game. But the players preferred to highlight the knowledge dimension (54.55%). The game system fostered ridiculous situations, but the serious side emerged, nonetheless. A similar level of challenge appeared in Fake Artist Goes to New York (46.67%). Here the challenge reflected the drawing and the bluffing during storytelling.

Trying to deceive other players during Fake Artist Goes to New York produced a high interaction (60.00%), similar to the physical interaction during Happy Salmon (69.23%). Although Fake Artist Goes to New York was a team game, the perception of collaboration was high (33.33%), but not as much as Just One, which is a fully cooperative game (35.71%).

The game adaptations and modifications to address this group affected their experiences and perceptions. In previous experiences with games like Telestrations and Fake Artist Goes to New York, the perceptions of creativity were very high (Rosa et al., 2021b; Sousa, 2020a).

6. Emerging method to use games as informal training and learning tools

The experience with the sequence of games proved to engage players, even those with low board game habits. The levels of engagement, humor, and fun were noticeable during the three hours of the experiment. Observations, the post-its, and informal conversations with the participants after the game sessions were positive. Participants stated that they would like to continue to play these games and explore new ones in the future.

The reported experience was created for a design and marketing company, but it could be easily adapted to address other issues other organizations value. Generic skills like collaboration, creativity, and communication are relevant everywhere. Remembering that the games were played in a restaurant and bar, without any other requirements besides the available furniture, is significant in this case. Party games, and others alike, are fit to be played in these places, as they are also common in board game cafes. The author argues that the proposed approach can work in the company facilities or at restaurants and bars. It can be done informally, by playing freely, or by aiming for serious game approaches when planning a sequence of games and associated facilitation (briefing and debriefing) for specific purposes.

6.1. Proposing a procedure

The experiment, perceived as a success by the participants, can lead to new approaches. Playing modern board games with informality can improve what institutions and organizations produce or deliver experiences that workers value in their after-work free time. Institutions can organize these spaces for play according to their goals. Nevertheless, this requires collecting information about the groups that will play the games and considering available resources when selecting the games. Analog games demand time and space, having the physical games and some facilitators able to teach them. These requirements may jeopardize part of the desired informality.

Institutions can do this themselves or establish collaborations with other entities interested in exploring the games and the social engagement they provide. Bars and restaurants can be interested in these approaches as the concept of a board game café is spreading worldwide. Figure 3 presents a scheme for introducing these approaches and combining possible institutional goals and the desire for social and engaging experiences during and after work. It considers the adaptation of games to fit the goals as the crossing between engaging experiences and the skills and issues institutions value. The proposed process resulted from practical experimentation during the game sessions, enabling future adaptation and modification to fit learning and training purposes for each group of users.

Figure 3. Procedure for creating play spaces for delivering goals for institutions and social play.

We can previously select to deliver play sequences, complementing each other as ways to reach specific goals and engage different player profiles. Adapting the games to fit the institutional goals also increases the potential for the play sessions to become serious games. The process of adapting and choosing games can result from informal play. Participants can discuss themselves and select what to play and the purpose of it if they desire, although this requires knowing the games and the experiences they provide. Alternatively, to this extreme informality, having someone in charge of the process. A facilitator will organize the informal play sessions, intervening whenever necessary.

7. Conclusion

The proposed procedure is to play in informal environments, directly at workspaces or in other work-related spaces. Institutional leadership can foster these play spaces, funding the games and the facilitators. Despite this guidance, the employees can do this themselves, as they gain experience with these serious game informal methods. Employees can progressively learn which games are better for them and address goals related to desired human interactions and issues.

The experience revealed that implementing a game session to address an institution’s culture and collaborators is possible in a more-less informal space. Yet, it demanded a facilitator that previously selected and modified the games to fit the purposes at stake. Players recognized many game impacts and outcomes beyond fun and entertainment. They recognized knowledge acquisition and team building. The experience reveals that modern board party games are serious and deliver meaningful work activities when facilitated and supported by a simple method for analyzing gameplay experiences.

We can argue that the experience was a success due to the low dropout rate (18.8%), and even these results might be the result of other personal compromises and not disliking the games. The comments on the post-its referend to learning and training skills relevant to institutions like collaboration, teamwork, awareness, and creativity. It was obvious that participants ignored modern board games as a hobby. They were surprised by the experiences the games provided and considered them relevant in an epoch where digitalization model social habits and human interactions were scarce.

Future research could define specific sequences of games for some typologies of institutions and improve the method to collect data from players, allowing more ways to express their experiences. Analyzing the different levels of informality and facilitation required to deliver the play sessions can establish the necessary level of human investment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).