When businesses start offering as-a-service solutions, they effectively take on the risk of service failure. Business enters a whole new game when it rises or falls on the risk of service failure, but that’s where the internet of things is taking us. They're based in convenient locations including supermarkets, newsagents and train stations. Plus they're often open late and on Sundays. Imagine walking into an appliance store and seeing that shiny new refrigerator. Imagine that, among the options, I can have this refrigerator as a service, for a price that reflects not just the cost of the refrigerator, but includes it’s actual energy cost too. If you're wrong, you're still in the round but the chance to guess passes to the player on your left. You remain in the round until someone matches you up with your response. Important: There are no correct answers! These are topics not questions. So write whatever you want: straightforward things..., funny things..., outrageous things..., or write something that another player might write just to confuse things...

We caught up with him to talk about the origins of THINGS…, the secret to a great party game and the advice he wishes he’d been given at the start of his game design journey. Imagine buying not a heat pump, but contracting for a temperate home, as a service. Year-round, your home will be 21 deg.C. Imagine the appeal of a service like that for people on fixed incomes. You must keep everyone engaged at all times so that their attention does not wander when it’s not their turn. There are lots of devices to accomplish that, but we found that keeping people laughing even when they were not writing responses or guessing “who-wrote-what” worked for us.The Game of things box contains 300 topic cards, 8 pencils, a score pad and a response pad. Setting up the game couldnt be easier with one player taking score and every player taking a response sheet and a pencil (if more than 8 players then you will need more pencils). The topic cards are placed face down with reach of all players There were multiple sources of inspiration for THINGS… but essentially it boils down to my brother Ted and I trying to make each other laugh. We would often adapt other games and sports to make them funnier for us.

Someone keeps score. This player takes the score pad. Every player gets a pencil and one sheet from the response pad. Either way, if you’ve got a decent sized gathering going on (we played with 8 people each time) with people who know each other and don’t mind being made to feel a bit embarrassed, then you can have a fantastic time for a couple of hours with this. If I had to compare it to a more famous game in terms of awkwardness at times you could look at Cards Against Humanity; if you can imagine playing that with your intended group without someone storming off in an enraged offended huff, then this will work every bit as well. To score the game you get 1 point for each correct guess and 2 points for the person left at the end of each round. Items that are not available in store will take 3-5 working days (excluding weekends and bank holidays) to be delivered to your nominated store.

The final reason why the scoring mechanics are a problem is that it basically forces players to try and respond like they were one of the other players. If all of the players do this it doesn’t matter how well you know the other players as each player is pretending to be another player. With each player pretending to be someone else, the scoring basically becomes a guessing game.

When reading responses, the Reader should always only read them aloud. Studying the responses quietly while other players are guessing should be avoided out of fairness.

Finally I want to touch on the game’s components. For a Parker Brothers game I have to admit that I was actually quite surprised by the component quality of The Game of Things. The game only comes with cards, sheets of paper and pencils but the game does quite a bit with those few components. First I have to commend the game on the number of cards that are included. The game comes with 300 cards which gives players plenty of prompts. For example you could play over 75 four player games (using the official rules) before having to repeat any cards. The prompts are good enough that I don’t really see a problem with repeating them every so often. I also have to give the game credit for including plenty of response sheets. I really like that the game uses sheets that tear apart which allow you to play ten rounds with each response sheet. Finally while unnecessary I have always been a fan of games that use wood boxes. Should You Buy The Game of Things? Marketing is key! Before signing an agreement with any company make sure you understand exactly how it will be presented to the consumer. Have the marketing plan in the contract. No marketing = no sales. The Game of Things is an interesting game. I found the normal rules for the game to be pretty flawed. Most of my problems with the game come from the scoring mechanics. They reward players for guessing what responses the other players came up with which leads players to try to write responses that the other players would normally come up with. The mechanics are distracting to the point where I would throw them out and use your own scoring mechanics. This is where the game actually has the potential to be a good game. If instead of rewarding players for guessing which responses the other players gave you reward players for creating funny/creative answers, the game is actually quite enjoyable. The game includes a lot of prompts and the prompts are actually quite good. With the right group you can get a lot of laughs out of The Game of Things. This makes possible a whole new kind of economy — a service based economy, where we can buy what we consume directly, while we’re consuming it. The game ends when everyone has had a chance to be the reader. The player who has scored the most points wins the game. My Thoughts on The Game of Things

My experience as an Assistant Director has taught me how creative businesses work. I am familiar with the amount and type of labour that’s involved in taking a concept and seeing it through to the end whether that be the movie theatre, the TV set or the store shelf. After the score has been recorded, a new round begins with the player to the left of the previous reader becoming the reader for the next round. End of Game Also, some players have brought it to our attention that with smaller groups the Reader may recognize handwriting and therefore be able to easily match players to their response. Ever wanted to make people read something out loud that you know for a fact will embarrass them or make them feel awkward? Now’s your chance: The Game of THINGS tests your ability to know how your friends and family think, and in doing so opens up the door to produce some incredibly funny moments. Just around the corner is a generation of smart things, potentially more self-aware than the human behind the controls (at least while there are still humans behind the controls). In fact, a lot of the insights from this kind of technology will be applied to understanding the human element — it’s long been the case in the transport industry, for example.

Components

But get the right group of players, the right atmosphere, and the right amount of alcohol involved and this very soon descends into a huge amount of laughter and fun. When, in response to “things you wished you knew beforehand” you can get your mother-in-law to read – out loud, of course – some very perverse sexual thoughts (as more than one of us did throughout our various games) you know you’re onto a winner. The oldest application for this kind of technology is predictive failure analysis — monitoring characteristics of a device, so that failure can be predicted and ultimately avoided. The technology is already in place on a lot of large-scale equipment such as locomotives and heavy transport equipment. Predictive failure analysis used to be the holy grail of data centre management. The science hasn’t evolved that much, but the current generation — the Internet Of Things — promises to operate at a whole new level of ubiquitous scale. To start the game you need to choose one player to be the reader for the first round. They choose one of the cards and reads it out loud. The Topic cards are not questions so there are no wrong answers which makes this a great game for those with little to no general knowledge. This advice is the same for any industry: Don’t rush into anything while you do your research. Study all the angles before making major decisions. The game business is massive and there are many ways to launch a product and even more pitfalls. Get advice from as many toy and game professionals as possible, especially other game designers, to figure out what route is best for you and your product before spending too much of your own money. Am I really saving any money re-heating last night’s pizza if I have to get the oven up to 150 deg.C to do it?