Icebreakers in Games

My background is in designing and leading live, interactive entertainment experiences for groups of strangers.

My Fremont (the Seattle neighborhood) Free Walking tour

I've lead walking tours, pub crawls, hostel events, cruises, and currently I'm a live game master at The Tomb Raider Experience Seattle where I play the role of an expedition leader, taking a team of archaeologists on a secretive mission.

In all these experiences, it would be absolutely unthinkable not to do some sort of icebreaker for these groups of strangers. The success of these experiences is dependent on making people feel comfortable and primed for interaction. At the Tomb Raider Experience, we want to get people into the magic circle before we start, so our favorite icebreaker is silly and creative. "If you could have the legs of any animal, what would you choose?" (My answer is gecko btw).

My questions is, 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐨 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬? Even board games will use their player who goes first rule as a subtle icebreaker. For example, in Keymaster Games' "PARKS", the first player is the most recent player to go on a hike, which usually results in a quick discussion of the last hikes players went on.

It's a great way to prime players for positive interaction, and open & positive communication opens up so much more possibility space for fun and strategy.

Some cool examples I can think of are Dota 2's loading screens which feature a player and celebrates some of their recent achievements.

Dota 2 loading screen featuring fun facts about one of your teammates!

Look at the picture, this player has 7 consecutive wins with Sand King. And they are playing Sand King! I'm stoked this player is on my team!

I also really like some of the communication puzzles in Rebellion's Strange Brigade. In this game, the puzzle solutions and input locations are often separate, so one player has to find & interpret the clues and communicate to another player at the input location how to solve the puzzle.

Clues for how to solve a puzzle in Strange Brigade

We use some similar puzzles at the Tomb Raider Experience, and they can result in hilarity with thoughtfully vague symbology. It's quite common to hear "They're digging up the pineapple!" on one of our expeditions.

That being said, Strange Brigade's core loop is Explore -> Puzzle -> Combat Finale, and I think for session based multiplayer games, a better structure might be 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐄𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 -> 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐩 -> 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐞.

I'm interested in how level design can help inspire teamwork and this week I'll be doing a quick prototype of a potential communication encounter based entirely on non-verbal communication.

What are some examples of icebreakers you've seen in games? Or what are your favorite icebreakers? I'd particularly love to hear from someone who has played a lot of Deep Rock Galactic.