Creative & Non-Creative Board Games Decoded!

We have already discussed about board games can become a crucial resource for learning during the growth and developmental phase of a child. Apart from nurturing life and social skills, board games also help to build creativity. This is one of the findings in a recent study which also states that both creative and non-creative board games could help temporarily improve one’s divergent thinking capacity.

Let us look at what classifies under creative and non-creative board games and how they help.

Creative board games often involve drawing, storytelling, or coming up with unique concepts, while non-creative board games mostly focus on strategy and logic.

In creative board games, players need to -

-??????? Generate original ideas, open-ended actions, and storytelling elements

-??????? Combine elements in new ways, or think of innovative ideas to succeed

-??????? Encourage players to think creatively to overcome challenges

-??????? Focus on the originality of solutions or the narrative created during the play

In contrast, in non-creative board games, players need to -

-??????? Rely on established strategies, set actions, and clear decision paths

-??????? Decide move optimally based on set rules, and does not primarily focus on generating new concepts to win

-??????? Emphasizes tactical decision-making within a defined framework

-??????? Focus on achieving a specific goal like accumulating points or reaching a finish line.?

Examples of Creative Board Games:

• Pictionary: Players draw pictures to represent words or phrases for others to guess.
• Dixit:?Players describe a card creatively to make others guess which card they are thinking of
• The Big Idea:?Players combine cards to create unique inventions
• Telestrations:?Players secretly draw a picture based on a word, then the next person has to write a description of that drawing, and so on
• Cranium:?A mix of creative challenges including drawing, acting, sculpting, and answering trivia questions
• Concept:?Players use symbols to communicate a word or phrase to others
• Storytelling games like Once Upon a Time:?Players collaboratively build a narrative by adding elements to a story?or Story Cubes:?Players roll dice with different pictures and create a story based on the image
• Codenames:?Teams try to link words to their secret agent identities through cryptic clues

Examples of Non-Creative Board Games:

• Snakes and Ladder/Ludo:?Strategic game based on piece movements and tactics?to outperform opponents before they do
• Monopoly:?Players roll dice and acquire properties based on established rules?
• Scrabble:?Players build words using letter tiles with a set point system
• Ticket to Ride:?Players collect sets of cards to claim routes on a map, following established connection rules
• Checkers:?A simple strategy game with limited piece movement?
• Risk:?Players conquer territories on a map to dominate the world?
• Clue/Cluedo:?Players try to solve a mystery by identifying the suspect, weapon, and room