If you are working in a siloed team or in a siloed organisation you can use Magic Maze to expose some common antipatterns and let players test how structure of the organisation, team composition and and people mindset can influence the work.

The Game

Magic Maze is a cooperative real time (i.e. not turn based) game where all players are working together to control a team, composed by Elf, Warrior, Dwarf and Mage (coloured pawns). Purpose of the team is stealing objects in a mall (??) and escape.

The game is really fast paced and has a very interesting idea to disconnect the players from the characters on the board, making the game really well scalable.

Components are very simple and of good quality.
Here the link where you can find the rules of the game (link).

Note. There are many discussions on BGG on how to use the vortex.
In my version I really prefer the version of the “wormhole” where you enter in a vortex, of the same colour of te pawn, to exit in another vortex, elsewhere, of the same colour. However the game has been originally designed differently.
The original vortex is simpler to use than the wormhole.
In the serious version of the game this is not really important, this is part of the fun.

Goal of the serious session

I have modified this game to expose some antipatterns in organisation and team structure, and also in how people defend their unique and specific role within their teams.
During the game you will play essentially the same basic scenario of the original game (presented in rule book as “Scenario #1”), but with some variations that mimic typical “silos”. You can deal with these scenarios and you can compare with the best situation (played in the first round) and with your real life.

The game is designed for a team of 9 persons: 8 player and an observer.
The observer has an important role because this is a really fast paced game and the team has not enough time to also monitor what is happening. The observer must

• track the time to reach the first and the last Object area
• track the time to escape after the last object is reached?
• track the number of switches of the timer,
• monitor and share behaviours

Variation on the original game

You don’t need extra material, so everything is in the box.

Some tweaks to the original rules must be applied:

• In this game each player can use one hand only
• The sand timer can be used in different ways (recharge, paused)

Note: Keep in mind each player can perform only 7 actions: 4 Directions (arrows), New Room (lens), Up/Down (stairs), Jump (vortex)..

We are using what is described as scenario 1 in the rules, so you need the room tiles 1–9: we want to challenge players in the same situations tweaking behaviours and enhance differences.
All rounds will use the same set of room tiles, starting from tile 1a.

Structure of the session

The session is structured in different cases/rounds (we cannot use here the word “scenario”), when the team play the game. Each round lasts 10/15 minutes and will have some debrief/discussion at the end.
Add some time for a final wrap up on how you can apply learning from the game in real job.

Here you can find the description of many different cases in an ideal order; as a facilitator you can decide how to organise your session.
My only tip is to keep the order listed here because this is also related to their complexity. However you can decide to skip some cases.
FYI: 9 rounds of 15 minutes are more than 2 hours

Each round has a title that introduce the situation we want to explore.
My suggestion is not to mention that title before playing the round, eventually make a question like “What kind of situation we have found here?” during the debrief.

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Below each round has its own description where, in italic, I have highlighted the differences with the previous.

 

Round	Title	Notes
1	Cross Functional Team	All players can perform any action except Jump. Sand Timer can be turned before ending (recharge) through the Timer spots. Players can talk during the game. Vortex are not working. Actions cards not required.
2	Siloed Organisation	All players can perform any action except Jump but must act on a sigle room tile assigned with round-robin before starting the round. Sand Timer can be turned before ending (recharge) through the Timer spots. Players can talk during the game. Vortex are not working. Actions cards not required.
3	Peer collaboration	All players can perform any action except Jump, however a player can continue to perform the same action, but to do another action (or to act with another pawn) they have to wait for other players to play. Sand Timer can be turned before ending (recharge) through the Timer spots. Players can talk during the game. Vortexes are not working. Actions cards and sand timer not required.
4	Dispersed Remote Team	All players can perform any action except Jump, however a player can continue to perform the same action, but to do another action (or to act on another pawn) they have to wait for other players to play. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. Vortexes are not working. Actions cards not required.
5	Multiskilled Team	All players can perform any action (also Jump), however a player can continue to perform the same action, but to do another action (or to act on another pawn) they have to wait for other players to play. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. Vortexes are now working. Actions cards not required.
6	Siloed team (Scenario 1)	Players receive action cards as per the original game. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. Vortexes are working.
7	Partner team (Scenario 3~)	Players receive action cards as per the original game but these are hidden (each player can see its own only). Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. When sand timer switches it is paused, actions card are reshuffled and re-distributed to players, after that the sand timer restarts. Vortexes are working.
8	Planned work (Scenario 8)	Players receive action cards as per the original game. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. Vortexes are working. The next room tile is visible on top of the pile (pile room tiles face up).
9	Switching priorities (Scenario 11)	Players receive action cards as per the original game. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. When the sand timer switches, it is paused, two of the placed tiles (without pawns) are removed and two new are taken from the pile (hidden). Vortexes are working.
10	P-Managed team (Scenario 9)	Players receive action cards as per the original game. Players cannot talk at all, ONLY the Observer can control the sand timer , consuming any of the sand time spaces in the visible rooms. Only Observer can talk. Vortexes are working.
11	Unique Expertise (Scenario 4~)	Switch room tiles of 3,4,5 with 13,14,21. The Orange walls can be passed only by dwarf (orange). Players receive action cards as per the original game. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. Vortexes are working.
12	Blocked Work (Scenario 6)	Switch room tiles of 3,4,5 with 16,18,19. No new tiles can be showed till all cameras will be blocked by the Warrior (Yellow). Players receive action cards as per the original game. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. Vortexes are working. Note: you can integrate also 11th rule or consider the orange wall as common wall.
13	Unblocking Swarming (Scenario 6~)	Switch room tiles of 3,4,5 with 16,18,19. No new tiles can be showed till all cameras will be blocked by any player. Players receive action cards as per the original game. Players cannot talk during the game and sand timer is used as per the original game. Vortexes are working. Note: you can integrate 11 rule or consider the orange wall as common wall.

 

A possible evolution of the game is create action cards for 12 players.
Ideally each of the cards has 2 possible actions
This will increase possibilities, just need to check how 12 people can play in a so limited area.
But this can teach something about large agile teams.