Original Post by Devon Yuwiler:

I found it interesting that it was hard for individuals to win, even when we won as a team. We had a short discussion about being willing to lose something real-world for the same reasons, and while my team agreed that it was something worth losing out on personally, I know that is not true for the majority of people. Another interesting thought is the effect of “losing.” For example, both of our journalists lost because we didn’t have enough social media points. In the real world translation, we were willing to give up tour standing for our cause, but we never regained our platform.

The game conveys the difficulty of compromises to be made between competing parties, and we did make some decisions that we didn’t like. One thing that I think was perhaps unrealistic was the ability to strategize in a very particular way, and real-life strategizing would not be so clear-cut in most cases.

One table-talk item we discussed, but didn’t act on (because we weren’t sure if it was allowed), was for a journalist to pay a landowner for an interview so that they did not act in a way that diminished the species.

I don’t think I would change rules overall, it is actually quite fun when you get the hang of it! The only thing I might change is that you can use your “move to a different place” card in the same turn as another card. Though I understand that would expedite the game, it would also eliminate some extra complications in strategizing. The main critique that I have is that it is really clunky as an online game. Especially as moderator, there was a lot to keep track of.

My Comment:

Hi Devon,

Excellent post! Similarly, I have been considering how the game represents the benefits of collaboration in actual wildlife management. I wonder the extent to which each character benefits from a group win but individual loss in the real world. I say this because, throughout the game, making individual sacrifices for the purpose of contributing to the campaign was just viewed as noble. We based our play off simply, theoretically knowing it was best for the group to win as opposed to only having character victories. I wonder how wildlife management would change if characters had a clear understanding of how a campaign victory would help their personal successes.

It is also interesting to consider how strategizing can be adjust to be more clear-cut in actual wildlife management. Two characters moving to the same location in the game could represent having a higher-level quality of communication between stakeholders in the actual wildlife management context. On the other hand, I imagine the restraints we experienced in the game (such as not being able to use the “move action” card two turns in a row) represents administrative or bureaucratic roadblocks to communication in the real world.

I agree my greatest challenge with the game was shuffling around the different tabs on my screen. Being able to have everything laid out on a table in front of me would have helped. I am still glad I got to play it even while taking a class online. I enjoyed the game a lot.