We at Parent Co. couldn't agree more with every sentence of the UNBORED Games manifesto. The manifesto is printed at the beginning of the UNBORED Games book. The authors gave us permission to reprint it below.
1. Gaming encourages you to develop skills and expertise, by practicing something over and over. More importantly, gaming challenges you to teach yourself how to do something. 2. Although we live in a “throwaway” culture, gaming is all about hacking, modifying, and improving stuff you already own. If you don’t like the way a game works, instead of tossing it out you can make it work better. 3. Active games not only help you improve your coordination and develop agility and flexibility, but they also build self-confidence. There is no more enjoyable way to get and stay fit than to run around playing a game. 4. Games exercise your imagination and develop your problem-solving skills. Plus, playing games encourages you to hack, modify, and improve your own mindset and behavior. 5. Gaming makes you resilient and determined; you have to develop “grit.” Why bother? Because developing grit helps you to become independent. Gaming teaches you to actually do what you say you’re going to do. 6. What are you really good at? What motivates you? What makes you happy? Gaming teaches you the answers to these important questions: not just who you are, but what makes you tick. 7. Gaming teaches you that your environment is modifiable. You realize that everyday life is a puzzle to be solved: the more difficult the obstacles, the more fun you’ll have figuring out how to beat them. 8. Sharing games with others—teaching and learning the best strategies—is very rewarding. Whether you win or lose the game doesn’t matter, because although gaming is competitive, playing a game is always a collaboration. 9. Jumping in and making mistakes is the fastest way to learn how to play a game. Not worrying about being perfect, and just trying your best, is known as “fun failure.” 10. Each time you play a game, you enter a world in which grownups aren’t in control. When it comes to games, there are no teachers or coaches—it’s up to you, with a little help from your friends.
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