WordTrails™ Origins

  • Where did it come from? (Origin story)

The game began with a vision, one night in May 2021, when I (Scout) was camping out in the Nevada desert. I was sleeping in my truck, and woke up in the night with one of those marvelous epiphanies that can seem like the answer to everything. I was watching an internal dialogue between the part of me that absolutely insisted that I get out and dance in the moonlight to settle this epiphany into my body, and the part of me that said, “Seriously? Are you kidding me right now? Do you remember how dusty it is out there?? No way!”

Sigh. How many times have I sat and watched these two duke it out. Yes, no. Stay, go. Stand up, sit down. Speak, shut up.

 

In the middle of the escalating debate, from out of nowhere, a chip appeared in the air above my head. I can call it a vision now, but in the moment it was as real as can be. And as I watched, two hands came up, took hold of the chip from either side, and came back down. With a chip in each hand!

 

It became clear that the hands were mine, and that there were TWO chips, where there had CLEARLY been just one.

 

I looked at the chips, and saw that there was a word on each chip. 

 

My left hand was holding the word CAN and my right hand was holding the word HAVE TO.

 

The bottom of everything dropped out, and I felt like Alice, falling into wonderland.

 

 

 

That was the beginning of the game. Over the next three years the game has gradually, chip by chip (with an occasional quantum leap, a cascade of chips arriving to illuminate  a whole new question) become what it is now. 18 questions, 300 possible answers, 50 actions, 12 trinkets and the one rule. 

 

I imagine the game itself saying: 

 

Let’s see what happens, when we stop thinking we can and have to explain things, and just play together.

 

  • Where is the game now?

As of January 2025, 

We 1,500 copies of the game in hand.

We are seeking to understand the game more fully through further testing by people with whom there is a resonance.

We are selling these and working to get them out into the hands of people and organizations in areas where we have seen the game having a powerful impact.  

  • Where’s it going?

We’ve built the pricing structure to support giving away a third of the games, so we get it out to where it needs and wants to go, without the opening requirement of affordability. The first time out of the chute is always the most expensive, which is why we’re leaning into support from those who are already excited about it and can either buy a game, agree to test it within one of our target groups and give solid feedback, or help spread the word.

Here is what we have seen: WordTrails opens doors of possibility around conversation. After playing, people are more able and willing to talk openly and have conversations they may have given up hope of ever being able to have.

Some markets we have identified, and are actively seeding the game into:

  • Creative collaborators wanting to dissolve unconscious turf protection. This is a powerful tool for team building and bonding, simultaneously building individual agency and group synergy.

  • Therapists, counselors, coaches and energy healers working to help their clients step into a greater sense of personal agency.

  • Programs for developing leaders in a wide variety of fields: political, environmental, health etc.

  • Families needing intergenerational conversations around transitions, challenges and opportunities.

  • Veterans and those who love them.

  • Marginalized communities who have traditionally been unable to speak or feel understood.

Some common themes developing:

This game creates a truly level playing field where people can share what is true for them in a way they may have never experienced.

This game creates the actual condition of being able to share what is real, in real time.

This game takes concepts like safety, trust, belonging and wondering out of the conceptual or hypothetical, and into an actual somatic, felt experience.