There was meaningful play in our straw tower exercise. The goal was clear: build a tall tower that is taller than the other teams' tall towers. We needed to work together, but had to adhere to the rules, which was only build your towers with straws and tape and joy. So already we have contest and cooperation to dominate enemies. The game was neat because we could look at the other players in the room and see what they were doing. Early on this would help us change our tower building tactics, helping us improve and build better groundwork. After we built the ground work it was up to us to build a better tower. This simple progression of group based ideas after laying the groundwork meant that our actions within the core of the game had meaning and could build upon the initial basis of the game, which was to build the best tower ever.
The discernability resulted from the us understanding what we were doing right near the end of the game and looking at other teams to determine what they were doing right or wrong and we would adapt our tactics accordingly. Most of the feedback throughout the game resulted from our observations of other teams to figure out what works and what doesn't. This helped us achieve our goal.
In conclusion, straw game was a game because players worked as a team to achieve a goal while competing against other teams working to achieve the same goal. The rules were simple and the feedback was based around our observations and less from the designer. It was fun.
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