This is a cooperative riddle game that can be played with larger groups. The game is designed to be played in a cooperative manner, therefore it serves well as a communication and light team-building game.
- Ideal group size: 8-30 (split in 4 groups)
- Materials: 4x story cards (printed or digitally)
- Time: 30-120 minutes
Listen to me carefully. Because over time, memories fade away and every detail can be forgotten and lost. Our brain is the hero and villain of this story. Every time we remember, we also risk of this memory to be rewritten and slightly altered. You see, memory retrieval is not a one-way street. This is the story of three friends, who got together and as time passed, lost each other. Only careful reconstruction of past memories, with all their gaps and fragmentations, will lead you to their secret.
The group is split into 4 groups. Each group receives a story of a different character. Each story contains clues for all character’s individual secrets. The game is designed that every group needs clues from all other stories to find the solution to their puzzle piece. The goal of the group is to find the solution of the game, which is the combination of all individual solutions. How the game is organised exactly is up to the game narrator. The following procedure received good feedback:
- The narrator introduces the game to everyone. It is important that the narrator already knows the solution and the individual stories at this point. Reveal as little as possible, and as much as necessary.
- The group is split into 4 subgroups. From this point on, groups are not allowed to communicate with each other. Each group receives the story of one character.
- After 5 minutes, each group gets to send one visitor to another group. Ideally, this person would ask as many questions as possible and share his/her memory of the stories heard. The person returns to the group after the time. This can be repeated as often as necessary. Restricting the number of visits at the beginning helps to increase the stakes, but might cause frustration if the solution was not found yet.
- After having visited each group, all groups theoretically have enough information to individually solve their part of the riddle.
- Once the individual riddles are solved, the combination of those will lead to the solution of the whole game.
- In most cases, it is still necessary for all groups to rejoin and figure out the final solution.
- We had the luck to have access to a numeric lock, which matched the solution of the game. This had the big advantage that the players could try out possible solutions. Alternatively, a phone’s numeric lock or a programmable safe could be used. The solution could also be added or somehow transformed to GPS coordinates, where a treasure is hidden.
There is a lot of room for variation: timings, whether visitors return to their original group, whether note taking is explicitly forbidden, limited amount of Yes/No questions that can be asked to the narrator as the safety ring, how extensive the background story is. The numeric key could also be altered, but alterations to story should be made with consideration, as many details have implications to other parts of the story.
Note: The European Youth Parliament is a youth NGO that support the development of young people into politically aware and young citizens.
The game can be played with a CJO team or larget committees, but could also, with minor adjustments, played with several committees competitively or cooperatively. Enough time and flexibility is highly recommended to guarantee a pleasant playing experience.
The backstory and the solution can be found here.
Feedback to further develop the story is highly encouraged!