Game Theory more than just fun and games although there is that too!

Article, Photos and Video by Gunner Strietzel and Dan Weitzman/ M&M Staffers

Game Theory is one of the eight classes offered at Duke TIP at UGA Term 2.

It is a class about strategy, math, and how to have fun and win. Although it may seem like all fun and games, that isn’t entirely true. They also focus a lot on mathematics. They even took the Yale Economics final test, although most of the class failed.

“I think it’s a good mix,” Chloè said, speaking about the class. "We play games and at the same time we learn and work our minds," she explained.

The Game Theory class often plays popular games such as Blokus and Yahtzee, but they also made their own board games by either coming up with entirely new ideas, or mixing a few games together.

There are 12 people in the Game Theory class, and so they created groups of four, meaning three different games where to be made. The kids were given poster boards and were told to create a game on the board.

The only rules where that they couldn’t duplicate another game, and that the game must have a dominant strategy, other than that they were free to do anything they wanted. They had a couple of nights to think up an idea and then had to present it during class.First up was Chloè’s group. This group also included Ruthie, Maddy, and Sam. They created a game called Color Wars, a game in which you try to rack up points by invading other territories with your paper clips.

The way the game works is each color starts in its color’s corner. From there you create chains by adding paper clips in order to get into the other people’s territories.If you land on a surprise square, you get a card. You can’t show the card to anyone unless it is something that involves an immediate action. If it has to do with points you simply keep the card with you, face down. Different areas have different points, and you count the number of paper clips you have in those areas, and that’s how you get points. But, you only get points for the paper clips that are in other people’s territories, so you want to get to other people’s territories as fast as you can, using minimal pieces as possible.

The next group included Michael, Alyx, Mary, and Crystan. They created a game based off of the popular game, Risk. Their game is called The Island, and the way you win is by concurring all the countries within the island. Or, the other way to win is by everyone agreeing the game is over, and the person with the most amount of countries wins.

You start off on one of four countries, and make you way towards the island, once there you take over the country by simply placing your pieces on the country, and you can battle with other people by getting three of your pieces on their country then rolling a die, the one with the highest number wins. You also have resource cards, and you win or lose them along the way. If you lose all your resource cards, or if you run out of pieces, you automatically lose the game. So you have to be careful when moving.

Last was Matt, Sarah, Monique, and Layla’s game, Sajo!. In Sajo! the goal is to fill up your color’s square. There are two suites of cards, diamonds and clubs. Your partner sits across from you and you play your cards. Depending on what you play depends on how many pieces you can lay down in your square. If you both play diamonds, you each place eight. If you play a diamond and your partner plays a club, you only get to put down 4 pieces, while your partner gets to place down 12. So you can either work with your partner to beat out the other team, or you can try to cause your partner to lose, allowing yourself to win.

Game Theory is a great class for having fun while also learning about different strategies to use, different mathematical equations, and what to do in certain situations. Overall, the kids love the class and would highly suggest people to take it.