30/06/2025
What skills are developed through play?
Actually, many.
🎯 Strategic thinking — when you’re not just planning one move, but several scenarios ahead.
🧠 Critical thinking — especially if the game is designed to test your logic, analysis, and ability to question things.
🎭 Emotional resilience — especially in games with risk or loss. Think of Mafia.
🤝 Teamwork — where it’s not just about winning, but winning together.
And there’s more: observation, flexibility, improvisation — all those things we often don’t improve in “serious” life.
But there’s one thing people rarely talk about.
As someone who has tried designing games, I can share a little insight: every game designer puts an idea into their game.
And to win — you need to discover one or more favorable patterns. Strategies, solutions, rules.
Here’s an example.
I played Mafia recently and at some point I realized why I was winning.
If you look carefully at the cards, interactions, moves — you can see pure math behind them.
One of the cards offers a really good deal for building houses and so on, and if you land on it, the other player pays you really well for the card, even though you invested less yourself.
That is development: when you suddenly start seeing not just the surface, but the system underneath it.
And you carry that over to life. To work. To relationships. To choices.
So yes — play. But not just “for fun.”
Play to notice how your thinking changes.
