Introducing Green Hollow, a gameful team building exercise by the troupe here at Amble Studio!

In Green Hollow, you each take on the role of a villager in the ancient town of Green Hollow. It is a town of peace and no masters, of pottery, woven cloth, and the dawn of new tools. In this fictional town, you all come together to work on a project to elevate the little village. But things rarely go to plan, and there will be many challenges. How will it all turn out?

Why this game?

Human beings are social animals. We tend to live together, work together and play together. But, flawed as we are, we don’t always do this ‘togetherness’ in ways that work for everyone. In Green Hollow, you get to play through various challenges your team will face, and explore together how these people work as a unit.

How does it mirror your own working? How does this fictional team of yours communicate? What can you learn from this? 

These kinds of conversations are key to not only improving the way a team works together, but the way a team is together. Granted, these conversations can be intimidating and appear dry and boring. Such perceptions are hurdles that prevent these conversations from happening, or prevent people from really engaging when they do.

With Green Hollow, Amble takes a gameful approach. As we’ve explored before, games encourage investment, strong and positive memories, and expanded thinking. You can read more about this here. By inviting conversation around a game, participants are often intrigued rather than intimidated. Excited rather than bored. And often more willing to engage in difficult topics when given the safety of a game of fiction.

This new game gives players an experience that allows their team to explore their internal dynamics, subconscious assumptions and ways of communicating. The experience is indirect, in that it doesn’t just recreate the existing workplace (which can just lead to recreating workplace drama), but provides a new lens through which to view oneself and one’s team. It creates a space where everyone feels safe to experiment, to be themselves. A space where everyone can be heard from individually while co-creating as a team.

Because this team is fictional and not you, failure is just an interesting plot point. It is all a learning experience and an exploration that you embark on together. There are no real-world consequences if your fictional project doesn’t turn out the way you originally intended. Projects going awry can lead to conversations just as valuable as any. 

Finally, the beauty of the game format is that every player gets their chance to build on the story of your shared project. Everyone gets a turn in the control seat, and everyone has autonomy over their fictional villager. Individually you all add threads to a shared story of your project, weaving together… whatever you want!

Regardless of your Green Hollow project’s success, there is much to talk about afterwards. What challenges were hardest? What seemed like a breeze? When did each person shine brightest? And how can you take this forward into your real world projects?

If these are conversations and questions your team wants to be having and answering, Green Hollow may be just the catalyst. 

While still in development, as of this week, Green Hollow is available to play for free! Everything you need to know is on the Green Hollow webpage. We’d love for you to play, discuss, and send us your feedback.

If you would like your team to be held and led through a facilitated session of Green Hollow, complete with a debrief afterwards, you can contact Amble Studio for that too!

For any enquiries, you can email us at troupe@amble.studio, or via our website contact form below.

You can also learn more about Green Hollow by listening to Amble troupe member Kiri Bear talk about it with game designer Alex Roberts on Jason Slingerland’s ‘Building the Game’ podcast!

Games and stories provide such rich opportunities for growth and exploration. We hope you join us for the adventure!

Stay safe all.

This article was written by Logan Timmins on Wurundjeri land. Amble Studio pays respects to Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledges that sovereignty was never ceded.

All images free to use from Unsplash.com. Banner image by Visnu Deva. First article image by Fauzan Saari. Second article image by Tomasz Filipek.