SINGAPORE – Having played only mainstream games such as Monopoly, trying a card game about having deeper conversations was a completely new experience for Madam Tay Siew Lam.

The IT project manager tried her hand at Mindline+, created by local mental health platform Mindline.sg, at Impact Play Fest, a game festival held on Dec 10 at the Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Centre in Yishun.

Players choose cards with thought-provoking questions, such as “What is your biggest fear?”. After they answer the question, other players respond by asking deeper questions or providing encouragement.

Madam Tay, 51, said: “Usually when Singaporeans meet, we just ask, ‘Have you eaten?’. So those questions in the cards are quite refreshing for me. It gets me thinking about how to strike a better conversation with others.”

Impact Play Fest is the first game festival in Singapore featuring tabletop and video games about social issues.

About 300 people attended the festival, which was organised by local social enterprises Happiness Initiative, Bold At Work and Friendzone, and featured 35 social impact games.

These included tabletop games such as card and board games, and digital games. In a day, the vendors at the festival sold 117 games in total.

Impact Play Fest co-organiser Sherman Ho said games are an accessible way to learn about social issues.

Mr Ho, who is also co-founder of Happiness Initiative, which focuses on mental well-being, said: “If you go to kids and tell them they need to talk about their emotions, they may not know what you are talking about.

“But if you put a board game in front of them, even if you don’t tell them the rules, they will figure out how to play. It’s a very powerful way of engaging people.”

One of the card games from Happiness Initiative, Let’s Unpack This, encourages people to explore their emotions and is based on cognitive behavioural therapy, a psychological treatment for mental health conditions.

Players choose cards that describe how they feel, such as being anxious, angry or lonely.

Then, they pick cards describing beliefs that might explain why they feel that way, such as “I need to be perfect”, or “People are going to leave me”.

More than 2,000 sets of the game, priced at $37.90, have been sold since its launch in 2021.

Most buyers are educators, who have found it useful in school settings or counselling sessions, said Mr Ho.

Ms Clarice Song, co-founder of Bold At Work and co-organiser of the festival, said that in the past, people would run workshops to start conversations about social issues.

Now, more are willing to use games as a tool on campuses and in workplaces to explore social issues, she said.

One of Bold At Work’s games, JuraSeek Park, helps young people talk about their goals in their career and relationships.

Ms Song said: “When they play with their friends, they realise they are not alone. They feel ‘My friends are also facing parental pressures and also have the same financial considerations and needs.’”

Some even changed their jobs after playing the game, she added.

The Karang Guni Trail is a snakes-and-ladders board game about recycling and composting.

Ms Sangeeta Nair, founder of The Eco Statement, the social enterprise that created the game, said that more than 20 schools are using the organisation’s two games in school programmes.

Some parents also bought the games to play with their children, she added.

She said: “Parents tell us that not only do the kids become mindful of where and how they throw the trash away, but they themselves also learn things they didn’t know about recycling.”

Educator Lim Jun Yu, 30, who was at Impact Play Fest, said that he would consider introducing such social impact games in his classes.

“It’s a more meaningful way of engaging students than standing in front of them and saying ‘This is what I have to teach you,’” said Mr Lim.

Catholic High School student Tedrick Tay, 16, and his three friends enjoyed visiting the festival.

He said: “These games are a more casual way of learning topics as compared with through workshops, because it’s at your own time and own target. And you can have fun with your friends.”