A2Z  ·  the workshop games, A to Z

Games that teach a system by making you live inside it.

Multiplayer games for workshops: each one hides a lesson inside play. The obvious move backfires, the room sees the cost, and then everyone talks about why. That is the point.

Twenty-four games, live now Runs in a browser, no installs 6 to 20 players Built for facilitators

The roster · pick a game to see it up close

🌾

So Farm, So Good

A season is a portfolio of bets

A team shares one nine-plot farm, a big loan, and two years on a live clock. Every plot is a bet, cheap and fast or dear and slow, and the upkeep bill lands whether you planted or not. Then the weather turns.

Portfolio thinkingRisk vs returnFixed costs bite
60 mins Up close
🧭

Crew

The fix is never on your own panel

One live machine, six stations, everyone's hands on it at once. Power and strain are shared, and whoever sees trouble first holds no controls. Six worlds, from a starship to an ER to a mountain.

InterdependenceCross-team diagnosisSituational awareness
25 to 40 mins Up close

Voyage

Information is the cheapest thing on the shelf

One crew, one ship, one purse, an open chart. Provision a hold that cannot carry everything, argue the route, and meet pirates and storms with the odds on the card. One captain commits; everyone advises.

Decisions under uncertaintyValue of informationContingency planning
45 to 60 mins Up close
🔐

Escape

The clue was on the board. Someone had to say it out loud

A team sealed in a room, a clock burning down. Inspect objects, pin what you find to a shared board, and chain the clues into real puzzles. Solve your way out, or your way in to stop what must be stopped.

Sharing what you knowCollective problem-solvingSpeaking up
45 mins Up close

Moments

You do not get told who matters

Client centricity, one customer at a time. You care for someone easy to overlook who secretly matters most, reading them moment by moment and giving the right touch, not the most. Six worlds.

Client centricityMoments of truthPrioritising who matters
25 mins Up close
🪞

Mirror

Receiving feedback is the harder half

Taking feedback well, the half no one teaches. It lands on you, and you choose how you react, how you dig in, and what you keep. The skill is staying open and discerning, not just accepting. Sixteen worlds.

Receiving feedbackDefensivenessGrowth mindset
25 mins Up close
🪜

Ladder

The excuse is true. It was never the point.

Personal accountability under fire. One rough stretch, ten setbacks, and every one hands you a valid excuse. At each you pick a rung: own it, or blame, excuse, and wait below the line. Ten worlds.

Personal accountabilityOwnership vs excusesThe accountability ladder
20 mins Up close
🫥

Blindspot

You think you would spot the trap. You will fall for more than you think.

Twenty quick traps for the mind, one bias each. Answer innocent-looking questions on your phone; each reveal names the bias and shows the room’s own numbers. Predict how many will catch you, then find out. Two worlds.

Cognitive biasUnconscious biasThe bias blind spot
20 mins Up close

Conflict

Your profile says what you prefer. The day measures what you do.

The session for right after the Thomas-Kilmann assessment. One manager’s brutal day, ten conflicts, the same five unlabeled moves each time, and the day needs every mode exactly twice. Nine worlds.

Conflict modesBehaviour vs preferenceSituational flexibility
25 mins Up close
🗞️

Handoff

Delegation: the when, the whom, and the how

A solo, multi-week delegation sim. Each week your inbox overflows; for every item you keep it, hand it off, or let it go, and choose to whom and how closely. The weeks compound. Newsroom world, reskinnable.

DelegationWhen and to whomLetting go
20 mins Up close
🗜️

Keystone

Complex problems are webs, not lists

A solo, timed analytical case. Study the data, pick a site, and assemble eight systems whose constraints all interlock. Failed guesses cost you and lock your console, so it rewards verification, not speed.

Systems thinkingConstraints as websInterdependencies
20 mins Up close
🏙️

Colony

Chase the number and the town bills you for everything you ignored

The whole room builds one 3D town from their phones. Works bring jobs and smog, homes need power and clean air, roads or gridlock. Chase the resident goal alone and the systems you ignored quietly empty it out.

Systems thinkingSecond-order effectsHidden trade-offs
20 mins Up close
🖼️

Guild

Everyone painted correctly. That was the problem.

One shared pixel canvas, one commission the room paints together. Except the briefs quietly differ, and good-faith work keeps undoing itself. A second mode sets rival guilds loose on the same wall.

SilosSingle source of truthCost of conflict
20 mins Up close
🏔️

Detour

The plan is made at basecamp. Everything true happens on the way.

A night expedition where the shop sells you a beautiful plan, then the mountain changes mid-climb. The game measures how long you keep walking a route your own map already says is dead. VUCA, without the slides.

AdaptabilitySensing over planningVUCA
20 mins Up close
😉

You Know What I Mean

Shared context is built, not found

Say a workplace moment in five emojis; your partner picks what you meant. Conventions form, then the partners quietly swap and the room feels what every new hire feels. The opener: cute, fast, and sharper than it looks.

Shared contextCommunication gapsCurse of knowledge
20 to 35 mins Up close
🍉

Watermelon

When a measure becomes a target

Ten hours a week, split between the real work and looking busy. The dashboard rewards the wrong one, and crowns the wrong person on schedule. Green on the outside, red on the inside.

Goodhart's lawMetrics vs outcomesGaming the target
45 mins Up close
🙏

Atithi

Cash flow is not profit

A small resort where the guest is god and the fixed bill fires every week, full house or empty. Serve everyone at any cost and you burn out. The creed, read right, was always about the host.

Cash flow vs profitFinancial literacyWorking capital
45 to 70 mins Up close
🌳

Windfall

Generosity is positive sum

A valley of orchards and a common grove nobody owns. Seeds given to neighbours come back as canopy; the givers finish fullest and lift everyone with them. The happy one: no trap, and the good years were never luck.

Positive-sum thinkingReciprocityAbundance vs scarcity
45 to 70 mins Up close
💧

Troubled Waters

The tragedy of the commons

A shared reservoir, one dry season, and every farmer drawing what they need. Each choice is reasonable. The water still runs out. Felt in your own hands, not read in a case study.

Tragedy of the commonsShared resourcesShort vs long term
45 mins Up close
📦

Last Mile

The bullwhip effect

A line of stockrooms passing orders up a chain nobody can see the end of. A small wobble in demand becomes a whip crack upstream. What you cannot see, you overreact to.

The bullwhip effectSupply-chain dynamicsInformation delay
40 mins Up close
⚙️

Clockwork

Quality against the quota

A watch bench under a shipping target. Inspect each piece, find the fault a glance would miss, or make the number. Attention to detail is easy to preach and hard to hold when the clock runs.

Quality vs throughputAttention to detailPressure and shortcuts
45 mins Up close
⚖️

Bhav

Most deals are not a fixed pie

A spice mandi. You haggle multi-issue deals across the aisle, each side holding a private payoff sheet. Trade away what you care less about for what you care more about, and the pie grows.

Integrative negotiationExpanding the pieInterests vs positions
75 to 90 mins Up close

Show of Hands

Awareness is not immunity

A live vote on everyday calls. Unknown to the room, it is split in two, each half seeing the same choice worded a hair differently. At the reveal, the halves pull apart, showing what moves a room, not what it thinks.

Framing effectsPrimingAwareness vs behaviour
30 to 45 mins Up close
+ More in the workshop. The next game starts as a design doc, like every one above it did.

The roster