17 Aug

Tell Tall Tales – A game to reduce gender-based implicit biases

A recent addition to our growing platform of games is a board game we developed to counter the infamous ‘gender bias’. 

The card and board game is bound to get your creative juices using flowing unique collaborative story-telling. Each player takes turns to build a common story with the help of a certain set of cards dealt to them at the start of the game. The game consists of fantasy and counter-stereotypical components – each player takes on a character and narrates the story using these “out-of-ordinary” characters.

An online version of the card game is being developed to increase accessibility and distribution.

The game consists of:

• 4 card decks
  • Start cards
    • Characters that have brief information about them in the form ‘superpowers’ and ‘side effects’.
  • Element cards
    • Elements that players need to use within their narration.
  • Ending cards
    • Stories for the players to veer the story towards their own end. The player who uses all the element cards and ends the story their way, Wins!
  • Impediment cards
• Impediment board (Interrupts whenever a player makes a mistake in their narration)
  • Each time a player makes a mistake, they are supposed to move on the impediment board by rolling a die. Impediments could be of the form of a task or to skip the next turn – depending on the block they land on the board.
• 2 Dice
• 5 Pebbles to track the progress on the impediment board

The game builds on the concept of role play and perspective taking to create a kind of implicit and subtle realization among the players. Each of the endings are self-reflective in nature that really allows the message to pass on subliminally.

This board game is built to counter gender bias; however we plan to extend such a format to counter other kinds of biases that come up in the social and organizational spheres. Currently, the game is being tested among high school students (15-18 years) in Jalandhar. We hope to see some exciting results, stay tuned!

This board game was built in collaboration with Rayon Magon, a 17-year old high school student from Jalandhar.