USD ($)
EUR (€)
March’ing On For International Women's Day
We Can Play is a simple card game celebrating a wide and diverse range of women from different cultures, countries, ethnicities, backgrounds and in different professions over the last 200 years.
From Cleopatra and Boudica to Malala Yousafzai and Kamala Harris some of the women featured within this card game are well known and some are less known, making every game a learning experience where you’re either learning about women you may never have heard of before or simply refreshing your knowledge on influential women you have heard of. To help you win the game and to represent all the anonymous women out there who have helped to shape the world we live in there are also 5 anonymous cards included which help protect your gameplay.
There are 96 historical events included from Virginia Woolf publishing Mrs Dalloway to Hedy Lamarr’s patent for a secret radio transmission system or even the birth of Hatshepsut. Gameplay lasts around 10 to 30 minutes for 1 to 8 recommended age 10+. Yes that’s right people, you can also enjoy playing this solo if you want to test your knowledge and learn who these amazing women are/were.
Components
All cards are double sided with one side showing an illustration of a woman that includes a short description of something related to her whilst the other side is identical but includes the year the description relates to.
For example, Ada Lovelace’s card tells us she was an English mathematician who published a list of algorithms describing what will be considered the first computer program in history. On the other side of the card it also includes the year so in Ada’s case it is identical to the front displaying also the year 1842 which is when she first wrote an algorithm detailing how Charles Babbage’s analytical engine could work.
How To Play
To set up shuffle the cards and place them in a central play space with the year facedown. Choose someone to read the card’s information out loud then players have a go at guessing what year it occurred in. Don’t forget to read the woman’s name as well as if you already know who she is this might help you place it within a clear timeframe. Whichever player had the closest guess gets to keep that card and go first. The other players will also take an initial card from the deck and place it in front of them, year side up, ready for their turn.
The first player then reads the card on top of the card deck and decides whether to place it on the left hand side (chronologically earlier than the year displayed on the card in front of them) or on the right hand side (chronologically later than the year displayed on the card in front of them). Once decided they flip the card to see if they were right! If the player guessed incorrectly the card is removed from the game and their turn is over. If the player guessed correctly however, they have a big decision to make.
Decisions, Decisions
You can play on and try to win the game more quickly or you can pass to the next player. But be wary… you are now playing ‘risk’ cards. If you guess incorrectly then you lose all the cards in your hand and the risk card becomes your new first reference card.
As the aim of the game is to be the first person to correctly arrange 7 cards in chronological order you need to be careful… one wrong move and you could see all your cards tumbling away back into history.
Behind Every Great Man There Is A Great Woman
You may have a saviour though. A support to help you win the game. Just like so many great women in history who remain anonymous there are those anonymous cards I mentioned. If you draw an anonymous card you may choose to keep it to help you with future turns. Keeping it means play instantly moves on to the next player, however, when it is your next turn you can protect your risk card by attaching your anonymous card to it. This means that if you place the card incorrectly you only lose the risk card and not your whole collection. This could be absolutely vital if you are at 5 or 6 cards and you draw a tricky lesser known heroine.
Play will continue to move from player to player until there is a winner. Someone who correctly places their seventh lady in the correct chronological spot! If you wanted to play alone allow yourself 3 attempts and consider yourself foiled by history if you can’t win during that time!
Final Thoughts
So I’m an educationalist… I have a thirst for knowledge. I don’t always have the memory retention to win a pub quiz but I have an enthusiasm for the stories, for the learning. And I just think they could have added that little bit more to help spread the knowledge in a more fulfilling way.
What do I mean? Well, I would have preferred the back of the We Can Play card to look a little different, not just a repeat of the front. I’m not a game designer so I do realise this could have been a difficult if not impossible task but I would have liked to have seen the game perhaps highlight the name of the woman and the year for ease of reference at the top of the card but then rather than the drawing of the woman include some more information about who she was and/or what she did. Even a year of birth/death would have been nice.
I mean, don’t get me wrong the drawings are wonderful. Simple, yet artistic and a clear representation of what the woman looks, or is believed to have looked like. However, in a game designed to teach us about the women who have helped shape and change our world I found myself wanting to know a little bit more.
I’m a woman, and a computer scientist so obviously seeing Ada within the deck was a joy. But I just felt like I could have been told she was Lord Byron’s daughter. That’s also interesting right. Or that she was introduced to Charles Babbage via her private tutor, Mary Somerville. The analytical engine isn’t even mentioned. I suppose that element is related to a man but it’s interesting back story!
Anyway, I guess from an educational perspective I could have taken the time to Google each woman to find out more information for myself, but for me, research can be meticulous. If I’m reaching for the vast array of sources available on the Internet I’m not looking at Wikipedia and going oh, okay. I’m skimming several sites, I’m following up on interesting things I’ve learnt. Dare I say, that if I got that interested I may even buy a book or read a research paper.
I don’t know, maybe that’s their point… to help you expand your mind and knowledge by expecting to ignite that passion to find out more! My only problem with this is if I’m doing it during the game there’s a chance the flow will be lost. If I’m doing it after the game there’s a high chance with my low attention span I’ve already forgotten who it was I wanted to look up! I’m not suggesting they add an essay, it’s only a small card after all. But maybe a few bullet points of key or interesting facts would have sparked my attention beyond the next card I needed to read.
Women Are People Too
With all that said… this game is wonderfully simple. At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking it might look like you could play it as just a guessing game, you know something like the stupid deaths game where you guess if a grisly death story was true or false. And in all fairness if you manage to memorise all of the women and their years then you’re going to get pretty good at this game which may take some of the fun out of it if you’re always beating your friends and there is no challenge anymore.
However, for the same reason I bought the card set QueenG, I strongly believe that this game would make an excellent gift for older children. In learning about, and celebrating the achievements of women throughout history we can empower our young girls to aspire to influence their own change. By playing We Can Play we can help strip back potential gender imbalance beliefs that all great things achieved in the world were done so by men. We can help give women a voice! We can make those suffragettes proud.