The Game Every Intel Professional Should Play Is Now For Sale!

CVTV, a new version of the ancient game of Hnefatafl

Hnefatafl is one of my favorite games.  Quick to play, easy to learn, created by Vikings - what's not to love?

I recommend it to intelligence professionals, however, because it is an asymmetric game that forces players to really think like their opponents to win.  That, in my estimation, is a skill worth learning.

Last year, I ran a successfully funded Kickstarter project to produce my variant of this game.  Well, I have finally managed to fulfill all of the rewards promised under that campaign (long story...don't ask...) and am now able to make the game available to the general public!

If you are just interested in learning the kinds of things I talked about in the interview below or in just owning a nicely made, portable variant of the game, then I recommend the basic set.  This is also the set I would recommend to educators and trainers who would like to use the game to foster a discussion on asymmetry of goals, forces or geography (Contact me directly for discounts on bulk orders).

If, on the other hand you are into Cthulhu or into Vikings or, better yet, into Cthulhu vs. The Vikings, I recommend you think about buying the deluxe set (and, what the heck, you might as well get the comic to go with it - so you'll know the story!).

Whichever set you get, I am certain that you will enjoy the game!  And Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Spymaster - Test My New Card Game About Collection Management!

Last year I was struggling with how to make the classroom discussion of collection management (you know... the allocation of collection assets such as spies and satellites in order to gather required information in a timely manner) more interesting.

Couldn't do it.  

Even people who find the job enormously gratifying (and there are many), seem to have a hard time explaining why they like it so much.  

So...I decided to make a game out of it.

I call the game Spymaster and I have been using it in classes and playing it in my weekly Game Lab for most of the last year.  It seems to work really well both as a game and as a tool for making the challenges of collection management more real to students and young intel professionals.

It plays fast - in about 15 minutes - and is a cooperative game.  For those of you unfamiliar with this term, a cooperative game is one where all the players are on the same side trying to beat the game.  If you have ever played the board games Pandemic or Forbidden Island, you have played a cooperative game).  You can even play it solitaire but I have found it works best with 4-5 players and works really well in a classroom.

I have spent the last week or so cleaning up the game and making it look pretty and writing down the rules and a brief tutorial.  Now I am looking for people who would like to take this "beta" version out for a spin.

If you are interested in receiving a print-and-play version of the game on the condition that you give me some feedback, drop me a line at kwheaton@mercyhurst.edu. If you just want to follow along as I develop the game, check out the Spymaster Facebook Page.

The Mind's Lie AKA "Biases With Friends" (Free Beta App)

BLUF:  The Mind's Lie is a free Android gaming app on the Google Play Store available now.  It is similar to games such as Words With Friends in that you are playing against real people and not against the machine.   

The game is designed to implicitly teach you and the other players (up to six players per game) to recognize confirmation bias, anchoring bias, stereotyping/representativeness bias, projection/mirror imaging bias, bias blind spot, or fundamental attribution error in more or less realistic situations. It is based off a successful tabletop game I designed.

Background:  A few years ago, I was inspired by IARPA's SIRIUS program (which seeks to develop a video game which will teach analysts to recognize and mitigate the effect of the six specific cognitive biases listed above) to try to come up with my own game that would do at least some of the same things.

I don't know how to design video games, though, so I did what I could do - design a tabletop game.  Called The Mind's Lie, it uses an argumentation mechanic to implicitly teach players how to recognize variants of the same six biases that IARPA is testing in the SIRIUS Project.  

Eventually, through some good fortune, I did get to be involved in SIRIUS as a part of a team that Boeing put together.  Mel Richey, who worked with me on that Boeing team, eventually tested The Mind's Lie using people from all over the US and showed that it seems to work - the more you play it, the better you get at identifying the presence of the six biases in more-or-less realistic scenarios.  

Since then, we have been using The Mind's Lie in a series of workshops and in class.  I have been encouraged by the fact that it seems to work best with people who understand that bias is a persistent risk in their day-to-day work - people like lawyers, soldiers and, yes, intelligence analysts.

At about the same time, I was asked to submit an idea for a senior project to the software engineers at Penn State (the Behrend Campus).  I have done this in the past and we had explored the possibilities of a balloon based surveillance system and a Bayesian calculator for analysts (among other ideas) together. 

What I wanted this time, though, was to turn The Mind's Lie into a Words With Friends-type game.  I wanted people to be able to re-create the experience of playing The Mind's Lie around a table while on the go.  The engineers, Steve Chalker, Joe Grise and Kit Torelli, along with their professor, Dr. Matt White, decided to turn my game into an android app.

Nearly a year later, the app is here.  It is not perfect - it's a beta version (at best), but it is out there and free to download and play.  Hope you like it!

Just Launched My First Game, Widget, On Kickstarter; ENTINT Questions Generated At A Staggering Pace... (ENTINT)

You might notice something different about the site.  Over to the right you will see a small box that contains details on my first game, Widget.  I launched this game last night on Kickstarter.com and the text box you see now will stay up there for the next thirty days or so (clicking on the box will take you to the Widget website in all its glory).

Kickstarter gives you anywhere from 30-90 days to make your target (in my case $4000.  I set my time limit for 30 days -- which Kickstarter recommends).  If you make it, you get the money.  If you don't, you get nothing (and all of your backers do not get charged anything).  Basically, failing costs your backers nothing and costs you only your ego...

So far the launch has generated as many intelligence questions as it has answered.  More next week!

(PS.  On a personal note, I genuinely appreciate the readers of this blog who have backed this game already on Kickstarter.  I have a long way to go yet, but it is both encouraging and humbling to be the recipient of so much good will.  While I also understand that this game might not be perfect for many of the rest of you, I do appreciate those of you who have taken the time to post to Facebook, tweet about it, or otherwise share it with your friends and family.  I am pretty certain that there is someone in everyone's social network who will enjoy this game.  My challenge is to the get word out to them and your help has been invaluable!  Thanks! Kris)

Surreal Saturday: Auditorium (PlayAuditorium.com)

If you are looking for something different and profoundly odd and wonderful all at the same time, check out the new flash-based game Auditorium (Many thanks to Raph Koster's Website for blogging about Auditorium and to Lenny Raymond's Blog for pointing me to Raph's site...). Don't worry if you don't get it at first, you will (That moment of discovery is sort of what the game is about anyway). If you really get lost, scroll down the home page for a guide but I recommend you try it without the guide first.

Virtual Worlds And Cyberwarfare (Link List)

There have been a number of interesting articles in the news recently about the national security implications of virtual worlds and cyberwarfare. Start your reading with a couple of Danger Room articles, one on "Virtual World For Future Army Training" and an earlier article on "Army Wants 'First-Person Thinker' Video Game".

Next, stop over at Intelfusion for Jeff Carr's thoughts on cyberwarfare and the game of "Go". I have long thought that you can inform your understanding of a particular culture's strategic thinking by understanding the games people in that culture play. Go is a particularly good example of this, in my estimation, and Jeff's association of the game with cyberwarfare helped me think about the cyberwarfare issue in new ways.

Finally, if you want to understand where the future of virtual worlds might be, take a look at this chart on the KZERO website (KZERO is a research firm that covers virtual worlds). It doesn't take long to see that the millennial generation is growing up with virtual worlds and will likely drive their development. Finally, for an example of an existing virtual world targeted to this generation take a look at Club Penguin or, if you are more interested in the next generation of virtual worlds targeted at the millennials, see Gizmodo's coverage of Lego World.

WoW Sequel Lets WoW Players Play A Player Playing WoW (Onion)

I wonder what the DNI will think of this new threat...



'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Sunday Fun: "It's 1750 And You're A Detective In London..." (Channel4 via Jayisgames)

Prostitutes. Gin. Murder. Quill pens. It's 1750 and crime is out of control in London. The judges get together and put together an elite unit of what we would call "detectives" but what they called the "Bow Street Runners". Sounds like an interesting premise for a game and it is.

This free, online, flash based game is a companion to the UK's Channel 4 series called "City Of Vice". In it you are a Bow Street Runner working for a local judge trying to solve crimes and put bad guys behind bars. Far better than your average point and click online shooter, this game takes you into the gritty world of 1750's London and makes you think to catch your man (or woman, as the case may be). You collect evidence, search crime scenes and interview witnesses before you present your case to the judge.

The graphics are detailed and realistic (See the screenshot below) which makes the game fun to play but also means you really need a broadband connection to enjoy it. The story lines definitely appear to be PG-13 as well, though I have not played through all of the "Episodes". In addition, some of the few hand-eye coordination tasks in the game (like picking a lock) seem too easy for the video game crowd but might prove annoying to anyone older than 40.


Still, the heart of the game is figuring out the crime and here is where the game shines. The interface is easy to use and there is just enough complexity to the Episodes to keep you engaged without making them so difficult you can't solve them.

I found Bow Street Runners first on Jayisgames.com. If you are looking for other great casual games (AKA "something to take your mind off taxes"), Jayisgames is a very good site for reviews and recommendations.

Good Resource: International Center On Nonviolent Conflict (Liveblogging ISA)

With John McCain's recent speech on foreign policy recognizing the importance of allies and non-military strategies, it is virtually certain that the next president of the US (Clinton and Obama are already on the record with similar statements) will focus less on military strategies for protecting and advancing US national interests and more on diplomatic and other nonviolent strategies. With this thought in mind, it was more than serendipitous -- almost "way cool" -- to bump into the International Center On Nonviolent Conflict booth at ISA (See picture below).

The ICNC "is an independent, non-profit, educational foundation that develops and encourages the study and use of civilian-based, nonmilitary strategies to establish and defend human rights, democracy and justice worldwide." Good stuff, that, and we could use a bit more of it.

What is even better is that they have a number of films and resources that they are happy to send people who request them (Note: I was told by the booth attendant that they were free for the asking but I noted that there are prices -- very reasonable prices, but prices nonetheless -- on the ordering website. I may have gotten confused. Maybe they are only free to attendees of the conference. I certainly got my copies free. I will go back and double check this tomorrow or maybe the ICNC guys can post a comment to clarify).

I picked up two of the movies, Bringing Down a Dictator and A Force More Powerful. I have seen bits of Bringing Down A Dictator about the last days of the Milosevic regime and, having lived through some of that myself, can say that it is pretty good. I intend to watch A Force More Powerful when I get back to Mercyhurst and will blog about it later but my expectation is that it is equally good.

After I watch the movie, I am looking forward to playing the game! That's right, they have even developed a video game based on the movie and book, A Force More Powerful. They were down to their last copy and they told me they would have to send me one. In the meantime I will have to make do with reading the great reviews the game has earned.