Note to self: Never play Korean card games with a Korean

Over a year ago my Korean friend lreflection turned us on to the Korean card game GO-STOP or (Hanafuda in Japanese or Godori in Korean). My husband and I became avid fans of the game spending countless hours on yahoo games until one day, they pulled the plug on us. Go Stop is a card games that involves twelve suits, a TON of rules and dubious ‘traditions’ that involves throwing cards down with as much noise as possible and hiding one’s money under a mat (so your opponents do not know how much money you have squirreled away). It’s very hard to find people to play Go Stop with because of its steep learning curve.

Since we have learnt Go-STOP from lreflection, different members of her family have proceeded to win all our money at every game including her brother and even her mom. Last night was no exception. Within 4 hands, she had won 90 cents and left us penniless (literally) This may not sound like much, but when you consider that one point is one penny and we started with 30 pennies each. The 15 minutes it took seem to go be extremely fast 9Good thing we were not playing with dollars) So unless you have photographic memory, have been playing Go-STOP your entire life and know how to count cards, don’t try to play with the Koreans

A bit of trivia is that Nintendo started out as a company making picture cards (Yes … Go-Stop cards) long before they ever made video games. Apparently they still make them.

Look ma, I’m in a game!

I’m on a ‘games about social issues’ list. Somewhere deep in my brain I do believe in games as a medium for communication (and thus education) Today something came by my mailbox that filled my morning with part giggles and part indignation.

Artwork by Silhouette Studios

Silhouette Studios has been contracted by BreakThrough TV to develop an immigration game. Hell, I’ve been living the immigration game for 10 years! If only I had a game to teach me about it…..NOT! But seriously it could be one way to explain to Americans how hard it really is to stay in the country legally (especially if you are from a ‘developing’ country)

So I clicked to it out of curiousity…I was faced with some artwork. Hmm let’s see…hey look! the visa holder look JUST like me (if I were to be a man) And the greencard holder looks suspiciously European and well dressed. I love the fact that the undocumented male has a skateboard. I am sure that will come in handy when escaping from the INS and that guy doesn’t even look like the type that would know what to do with a skatebaord. Don’t even get me startedon the asylum seeker.

If this is truely an educational game about immigration, I hope it goes further to break the stereotypes of immigrants. The artwork seems typical to me and really all these different types of people can be in any one of these immigration situations. I hope that this game gets THAT point across.

Well its a BreakThrough product and they are good folks with good intentions. They’ve done some work with the non-profit I consult for so I have my fingers crossed that the game will come out as a worthwhile effort.