Scotland Yard
Yesterday I played a very interesting board game called Scotland Yard, which is all about team-coordination and working together. Scotland Yard is a game about cops chasing down a spy through London. What makes the game so interesting is that it pits one player against the rest.
One player assumes the role of Mister X, the master spy, who has to avoid getting caught by the police for a set number of turns. The other players take the roles of cops who have to chase him down. Both Mister X and the cops travel by public transportation (taxi, bus and underground) between different stations on the map. The cops are represented by different coloured pawns, only the location of Mister X is unknown to them. He writes his location and where he goes on a sheet of paper and only reveals his location every 5 turns. The only thing the cops know is his last revealed position and what kind of transportation he uses, with this information they have to puzzle together where Mister X might be hiding to catch him.
Scotland Yard is a so called asymmetrical cooperation game, the way Mister X and the cops play is very different from each other. It’s very important that the cops work together and coordinate their movements, however Mister X plays alone and can use this information to plan his own movements. This makes for a very interesting game of cat and mouse, where both teams try to anticipate the movements of each other. The game also facilitates to different kinds of players, if you like cooperation games you can become a cop, if not, you choose the role of Mister X. Also the difficulty is much lower when you are a cop because you can rely on the advice of your teammates. The game allows two different kinds of players to play together, catering to the needs of both of them. This might make Scotland Yard a very interesting source of inspiration for our project.