What is connection?
Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong defines connection as, “the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
“Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” ~Brené Brown
This is one of the best definition I have come across. I wanted to create a game to help us connect and I believe the first step to connect is to get to know each other or create a space where people get to know each other and feel seen, heard and valued.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation. ~Plato
This is what Emerge! is about. It is about becoming connected by discovering more about each other through play.
Emerge! How to play the game?
To play the game, shuffle the cards. Each player draws 3 cards. The person with the longest last name starts the game.
Each player tries to go through as many cards as possible with as many players as possible.
The game is played as a whole group. Each player takes a turn to go through at least one card with one other player.
Optional: To add a bit of competitiveness to the game, you can keep score on how many cards each player has gone through with how many players. See example below.
Player Name | # of cards played (A) | # of responses to the card (B) | Score (A x B)
To end the game:
If you are keeping score, the player with the highest score wins. If you are not keeping score, you can play rounds of 20 minutes and end when it is no longer fun to play or you got each player to respond to at least 10 cards.
Remember, the goal of this game is to emerge and become more connected.
Background
The first iteration of Emerge! was created in December 2018. It’s an 8x8 grid of mostly questions and some activities. If you are interested to play test the game, feel free to download the cards and play it with your family, team or colleagues. If you enjoyed the game, please share your thoughts and feedback using #emerge on twitter or drop me a note and let me know how it went.
