Narrative: Have you ever watched film’s or shows like Chef or Burnt or even Ratatouille and had a fantasy of maybe being a head chef and restaurateur yourself? Well, that moment has arrived! An investor of note has walked into the room and has charged you and your team with creating the best damn restaurant possible! You have complete carte-blanche, to create the most successful (boutique) restaurant you can, within the constraints of budget and space. It’s time to show the world your food-making chops and dazzle them with your cuisine creativity. Get ready to become Restaurant Managers!
Teamwork – Closer to a more traditional team-building experience where participants are given a single collective goal that they need to achieve by figuring out each other’s strengths, weaknesses and roles to accomplish the objective.
Working under pressure – As there is a deadline to getting the restaurant up and running, participants will feel the stress of time running out as they likely try to perfect their own ideas of what an ideal restaurant is.
Data gathering & analysis – As the subject is not a common one, participants will need to research extensively in the little time they have to be able to create a successful restaurant concept.
Difficulty Level – Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: A bridge has collapsed, and desperate people need to come across. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time to build the entire structure in one go. You and a sister team need to each construct one half of the structure, sharing resources, and connect the two parts when finished. For the sake of the people, the connected bridge had better hold up.
Teamwork – Another variation on teamwork, this requires at least two teams working on a section of the structure. Each team will need to communicate and collaborate internally in their own team as well as externally with other teams. The only catch is that they cannot view the other team’s progress, only discuss it.
Critical decision-making – Working with limited information, limited communication and limited resources will force participants to evaluate their choices and make unique decisions based on what they know and what they can control. The final connected products will offer interesting feedback between teams.
Time & resource management – As there is a deadline and a limited resource pool for all teams, they will need to plan and execute as efficiently as they can if they wish to be successful in achieving the objective of building the final structure.
Difficulty Level – Basic to Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: The ruler of a distant kingdom has decided to bring in outside counsel. You and many others have been chosen by the ruler to oversee various principalities and dukedoms, to manage them and ensure that they thrive. As these smaller regions prosper, so will the whole kingdom. But every choice has a consequence and not everyone view’s the progress of the kingdom with a favourable eye. Can you guarantee the kingdom’s prosperity, or will you fail like so many before you?
Teamwork – Participants will need to work together in their own teams and decided whether they wish to collaborate or compete with other teams in the same ‘kingdom’. The experience will lead to unique situations where individuals will either negotiate and compromise or push through with brute force.
Critical decision-making – As with many other scenario’s, the teams will not have the full picture as many actions may cause unforeseen consequences. Participants will need to make quick decisions before a situation spirals out of control.
Time & resource management – Each region in the ‘kingdom’ only has so many resources and each team can only do so much with them. Participants will need to choose which areas take priority and which can be left to later, but each choice will affect the outcome in an unknown way.
Difficulty Level – Intermediate to Advanced
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: Your team has been tasked to solve an intricate mystery. You must gather clues, research suspects, discover the nature of the crime, be it murder, theft or ransom and bring those responsible to justice. But time is not on your side, and the perpetrators will not sit still either…
Teamwork – As in good crime thrillers, participants will be part of a ‘law-enforcement’ team and must communicate, delegate, and compromise with both internal and external forces when solving the challenges.
Critical decision-making – Some scenarios will require quick thinking with limited information, such as a murder mystery case, where participants are expected to make the call without the whole picture.
Working under pressure – Each variant scenario will require the participants to solve the mystery before the perpetrators escape, requiring them to work quickly and effectively.
Problem-solving & Data – Clues and evidence will be presented as puzzles and problems to be solved, forcing participants to stretch their creative thinking muscles.
Difficulty Level – Advanced to Expert
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: A cryptic threat has been made, your team must work through images, audio files and various other clues to determine what parts of this sprawling conspiracy ring true and which don’t. Time is short and we are all in danger.
Teamwork – Each member must work together to utilize everyone’s inherent strengths and overcome their own weaknesses, communicating effectively and delegating where necessary.
Critical decision-making – Many of the challenges will only give part of the larger picture, thus participants may need to make decisions and leaps of faith to be able to progress.
Working under pressure – With the fictional threat hanging over participants heads, they will need to uncover and resolve the mystery quickly before time runs out.
Problem-solving & Data – Much of the clues and puzzles will require research and various individuals working together to analyse and solve them.
Difficulty Level – Advanced
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: A company has been attacked by a group of hackers, your team has been drafted and must find out what was stolen, why, and where the hackers are, to stop them from releasing classified documents to the public. You only have a few hours before the hacker’s threat becomes a reality!
Teamwork – Participants must work in teams; communicating, collaborating and delegating to solve complex multi-tiered puzzles and challenges.
Working under pressure – Participants must complete the experience within a given amount of time; narratively this is represented by the hackers threatening to reveal classified information.
Problem-solving & Data analysis – The experience is heavy on puzzles and lateral thinking challenges, requiring participants to stretch themselves with their collective knowledge and research/analysis skills.
Difficulty Level – Intermediate to Advanced
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: Have you watched Stranger Things or perhaps Stephen Colbert or Vin Diesel playing Dungeons & Dragons? Did you want to try it but felt that it might be too overwhelming to jump straight into such an alien fantasy experience? Well, we can offer an accessible variant on the role-playing experience that still uses D&D-like mechanics but allows you to be you and still enter a fictional narrative world. You and a group of others will face challenges where you will need to work together, communicate, plan and execute strategies and come out as the victors.
Teamwork – Players will be in much smaller groups, of 4-6 members, and be challenged by a game master with various narrative social interactions and challenges that the group must overcome together.
Critical decision-making – As players travel through the story, they will uncover more information, but for the most part they will need to make decisions on plans and interactions with fictional characters based on very limited information.
Problem-solving – Each member will have specific skills and knowledge and will need to utilize these to accomplish their goals in both social challenges as well as strategic and puzzle challenges.
Working under pressure – There often isn’t a time limit to a narrative-based role-playing session, however, players do need to accomplish their goal before the antagonist accomplishes theirs. Therefore players will still be pushed and put under pressure and stress as they work through the story.
Difficulty Level – Basic to Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: You are stranded in a deserted location be it an island or a frozen wasteland. With no memory of how you got there or why you are there. But you’re not alone. You and your party need to gather resources and determine which items you need to craft first in order to survive the elements and have any hope of being saved. Time is against you, but you are not the only ones trying to survive on this island…
Teamwork – As individuals and as a team, participants will need to determine what items have the highest priority for ensuring their survival. But as there are limited resources, they cannot craft all the items, they must collaborate, communicate and compromise on what will allow them to ‘survive’ the experience.
Critical decision-making – Not knowing what the environment will throw at them, participants must collectively decide on what will ensure their survival, drawing on each other’s strengths and knowledge, as none of them has enough information to make completely accurate decisions.
Working under pressure – Fighting for your survival, in a hostile environment, will place participants under a lot of pressure. They will need to learn to deal with their own stress levels, as they work together to survive, with time never being on their side.
Time & resource management – The location’s resources are limited and there isn’t enough time to do everything that needs to be done. Participants will need to resolve how best to use what they have, in the time they have, to increase their odds of survival.
Problem-solving – The inherent nature of using ‘random’ resources will push participants to think creatively about what they have available and what they can do.
Difficulty Level – Basic to Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: Disaster has struck, the world appears to be on fire. You are a team of researchers at a specialized hospital and you have managed to collect a group of 15 survivors. Unfortunately, your safe room only has space for your team and 8 survivors. Who will you choose to survive the apocalypse?
Teamwork – This is a very different type of team collaboration, as rather than working together on an abstract problem, participants will need to discuss with each other who has priority of saving based on value judgements and biases.
Critical decision-making – Participants decisions will be coloured by their own prejudices and they will be forced to reflect on their decision-making processes when reviewing the survivors.
Working under pressure – Deciding on who survives may be a difficult decision to make and will certainly place participants under unwelcome levels of stress. Though fictional, the stress of having to make such a decision will teach them how to deal with such pressures.
Difficulty Level – Basic to Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: You’re not sure how or why the virus occurred. But you and your team are tasked with the quarantine and logistics of getting those afflicted to a safe area and those still healthy away from the illness. This is about quick decision making, resource allocation, communication and working under pressure. The virus is still spreading, and you can’t stop until a cure is found.
Teamwork – Participants must work closely together, communicating clearly and effectively to be able to overcome the challenges posed in this scenario.
Critical decision-making – As the premise of the scenario is to save lives, many decisions will have a feeling of life-or-death. And as the pressure mounts on participants, they will be expected to increasingly make decisions without knowing what the outcomes could be.
Working under pressure – The fictional narrative of a deadly virus is aimed at placing participants under a lot of stress and will help them in learning to deal with it and become more resilient.
Time & Resource management – Depending on which variation of the scenario is used, resource management in a narrative-world that is slowly falling apart can be very important, as well as determining where best those resources can be used. Time in such a world is always scarce and participants will need to use it wisely.
Problem-solving & Data – Tracing the origin of the virus, agreeing and establishing quarantine zones, logistical problems, are all the ways in which participants will need to solve problems, puzzles and analyse data to accomplish the objective of the scenario(s).
Difficulty Level – Intermediate to Advanced
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: A gas explosion has occurred at local mining and refinement site. Your company is in full-blown crisis mode. How will you and your team deal with the crisis? How will you communicate what is needed to put the public’s mind at rest and how will you deal with the internal troubles that are arising from the crisis? You will need to work together and solve this crisis under pressure, and it won’t be easy…
Teamwork – Participants will take on the roles of high-level management in a company, each with their own motivations during the crises. They will need to navigate the crisis, communicate, delegate, negotiate and compromise both with internal and external forces.
Critical decision-making – Stakeholders, the press and institutions will be wanting answers and participants will need to decide quickly and effectively how they will deal with the crisis. As not everyone will have the same information as everyone else, decisions may become strained.
Working under pressure – With asymmetrical information and varying personal motivations, stress levels can rise, and participants will need to learn to quickly navigate the pressured waters to be able to accomplish their objectives successfully.
Difficulty Level – Advanced to Expert
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: You have been taken to a secret research location. Your group has been split into two teams; one is told that they must save the other by solving an intricate puzzle in another room. The team that remains and needs to be saved has their own puzzles to solve, which could help the other team. The only catch is that the saviour team cannot remove the puzzle from their room, and the team in danger cannot leave the room that they are in. How will these teams aid and save each other?
Teamwork – This scenario will push participants to think outside of the box in terms of how inter-team communication works, what the extents are of apparently obvious rules and end with them reflecting on what it is like to be under the illusion of isolation when dealing with difficult tasks.
Problem-solving – The puzzles and challenges in this scenario are incredibly complex and will require everyone working together. Groups that cannot figure out how to communicate successfully will likely fail. Though the true goal of the scenario is not to necessarily solve the puzzles in the rooms but to solve the problem of siloed thinking between groups.
Difficulty Level – Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: All you know is that there is a mystery to be solved. You won’t know why or what the reason is until you have solved it. All you are given is a cryptic message, a starting-location and some items that will help you. Let’s see who can solve it in the time given and discover what the answer to the mystery is.
Teamwork – A very traditional team-building experience, where participants must work together, learning to communicate effectively so that they can collective accomplish the objective.
Problem-solving – The problems and puzzles are complex enough to require multiple to solve them, but they can be done by individuals as well. The goal is more to determine which teams choose to work as a single unit and which choose to work as individuals. Not all will succeed if they choose a solitary path.
Difficulty Level – Basic to Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: The greatest moment of joy or the worst moment of fear for many. You must work together to put together a performance piece. You only have a few items and you are told it must last between 3 and 5 minutes. It could be live, it could be recorded, the choice is yours, but it must capture the hearts of the audience. Now go and break a leg!
Teamwork – Participants will need to work together, either forming a small film crew or a theatre/stage crew. Roles and suggestions can be given but ultimately, they must learn to self-organize and deliver what is expected of them in the time given.
Working under pressure – With a clear deadline and what is likely an alien experience, participants will be under a fair amount of pressure to come up with an idea that is engaging and original to capture the hearts of their target audience.
Difficulty Level – Basic to Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: You and others are all placed in various roles in a company currently under investigation. Each person has their own agenda, but everyone wants to survive this crisis. Can you navigate through the numerous priorities of everyone, dealing with relationships and personal motivations to resolve the crisis favourably or will you and everyone be arrested?
Teamwork – The teamwork in this scenario is how individuals communicate and negotiate with each other to determine the most favourable outcome for themselves and for the company as a whole.
Working under pressure – With the possibility of a lawsuit hanging over their heads, participants will need to figure out who is on their side and what the truth is quickly in order to survive the crisis.
Problem-solving – The experience takes on a mild investigation theme as players must figure out motivations and how these can help and/or affect their own needs and wants for a successful outcome.
Difficulty Level – Intermediate
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: How well do you really know something? How much of what you know is, in fact, collective knowledge? How accurately can you and your team draw a two-dimensional map of the whole world? You will need to work together leveraging each other’s strengths and overcoming your own weaknesses. Will you work as a whole or not?
Teamwork – Participants will not be able to reference any maps or resources to determine the size and shape of the countries on a map of the world and will have to rely on each other’s innate knowledge of the earth. This scenario is especially interesting with participants from different nations and cultures, as each will have unique views and memories from their regions.
Problem-solving – Teams will have a single large problem/puzzle to solve that many will assume is easy but will quickly realize is quite difficult. With the addition of a timed element of having a deadline, the pressure of creating an accurate representation of a map of the world will be quite stressful.
Difficulty Level – Beginner to Basic
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: The world’s a stage! Using these narrative picture dice, players will need to choose a story that they wish to express. Be that about a change they wish to see in their lives, organizations or the world. But to bring the story to life they will need to roll the dice and navigate the unexpected turns the dice, and life takes them.
Time & resource management: Participant’s will need to manage their time efficiently and effectively to be able to tell a short story about themselves that incorporate the suggestions of the story dice.
Problem-solving: To an extent, participants will need to solve how best they can tell their stories with the random suggestions from the story dice, thus also promoting creativity.
Working under pressure: Naturally participants will not have forever so create their personalised stories, so they will need to work quickly in order to achieve their desired outcome for the story.
Difficulty Level – Beginner to Advanced
WORK IN PROGRESS
Narrative: Have you ever delivered a course, workshop, seminar or keynote and felt that the energy in the room could use a boost or that your audience really should get comfortable you and each other? Well then you’ve likely used an icebreaker to get everyone relaxed! But not all icebreakers are created equal, some work better than others and some are occasion specific. Some can even be used to get across complex culture ideas if needed. How do you want to use your icebreakers and what do you wish to achieve with them?
Teamwork: Participant’s will need to work and play together to achieve the goal of the specific icebreaker game.
Problem-solving: Not every icebreaker is explained, some need to be explored with each member of the group that the participants are in.
Critical decision-making: Many icebreakers have a zero-sum component to them, so participants will need to think and act quickly on limited information in order to win some of the games.
Difficulty Level – Beginner to Advanced
All of the game-based learning experiences that æStranger has to offer are based upon the concept of an Alternate Reality Experience. You will enter a world that is very similar to the one you live in, but you will be faced with challenges and stories that will remove you from the world of the everyday. These alternate realities will require you to overcome problems, puzzles, devise tactics & plans, all while being placed under pressure and working together as a cohesive team.
Many of our adventures and experiences require extensive testing to make them the best they can be. If you wish to be part of the first set of people to try and test an experience, then you may be able to get a discount for your company, university, school or place of business.
About
æStranger officially started in 2018, but has been around in some form for a few years. It is a platform to promote a mission to engage people through adventure and storytelling, to better learn and understand from each other.
For more information please go to our About page.
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