WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT WORDTRAILS™

Our Vision / Manifesto

“I have never played a game that made me so aware of my unconscious thinking patterns. Sometimes I felt I was stuck in these unconscious behaviors that did not allow me to unfold my full potential.

But the game made me realize that I have the power to change them.

I just have to choose another path or another round little chip. Even if it is not always easy, the game made me aware of how I see the world and how I approach it. It is literally like a reset.”

What People Are Saying About WordTrails™

(Note: The original working title of the game was “Reset”, so you will see many references to that in here)
A note from Scout: The game is how I carve out the space in the world I need, myself, to get the kind of conversations my whole heart, soul and body are starving for. It’s an utterly and entirely selfish endeavor. It is a space where I can set the parameters of: Let’s both of us shut up and talk together. And let the game be what holds the boundary for all of us, including me.

This game levels the playing field, and creates safety, in an amazing way. 

It gives me a place where I am actually, truly safe.  Not safe because someone else says I am, or because I say I am, not safe because someone gave me permission to be – I’m safe because no one else can in any way make me unsafe. 

The safety is real. Actual. 

I am safe to be me, OK in myself, OK to explore myself and my relationship with others and with life in a way I have never experienced in the presence of other people.

 

What did you like? 

That there’s no winner or loser, and no objective.

(Club of diverse minds, UT Tech, 9/25/23)

 

*****

You know that feeling of just wishing the world would just stop and give you a chance to get off for a few minutes? To me, that is the space this game provides.

 

*****

 

One of the things about the game for me that I really appreciate is that it is neutral. Not skewed towards a bias, a gender, a sexual preference, a socioeconomic status, labels, titles or anything. It is a truly neutral and protected safe space to explore at my own pace. It allows me freedom and time to do what I want to do within it. It is liberating. 

 

******

I found it very insightful into my own feelings honestly. The squirrel analogy was spot on! Also, it was great being introduced to the “alternative world” the game offered. In hindsight, it really isn’t an alternative world, but actually the world you open up for yourself closing out the influences that exist in this current world we live in! 

 

I am thrilled you stuck around, honestly talking to you afterwards helped open up a new view (I.e. the circle of experts and play at the center).

 

I appreciate it more than you know! 

 

******

 

Hi Scout! It was awesome to visit with you after our trip. Thanks again for your support and help. Below is a statement about how we used the game outcomes for our trip. Was fun to write it up and reflect on how helpful the process was. Feel free to use it in your marketing, in whole or in part. We look forward to getting the go fund me link. 🙂

 

Warm wishes,

Jen

 

Powerful Tool for Guidance and Team Building! 

In getting ready for a challenging multi-week backpacking trip, we used this unique tool/process to set our shared intention for the trip.  We didn’t know each other very well when we started and our “Word Trail” process was a wonderfully helpful and important way to bring us together as a team. In a fun and intuitive way, the game guided us to six key words as the core things to guide our trip. We referred to and reflected on them a number of times during our journey when we ran into challenges. Thanks Scout for your vision and wisdom in creating and sharing this wonderful tool! ~ Jen and Linda

 

******

 

When I heard about the game “Reset” for the first time, I did not know at all what to expect. I was just told that there was no explanation needed and a lot of times, we are expecting an explanation before we are getting ourselves into something unknown. But as soon as I started playing, I didn’t want to stop and I understood, that sometimes no explanation allows us to express ourselves more honestly. Sometimes things don’t need an explanation because it takes away the core meaning. There are so many ways to play “Reset”. You can play it just for yourself, or with someone else, everything is possible and every game can look completely different. I think I never played a game that made me think so much about my unconscious thinking patterns. Sometimes I felt I was stuck in these unconscious behaviors that did not allow me to unfold my full potential but the game made me realize that I have the power to change them. I just have to choose another path or another round little chip. Even if it is not always easy, the game made me aware of how I see the world and how I approach it. It is literally like a reset.

Thank you Scout for coming on my path at the moment I needed it and thank you for developing this beautiful game! I am sure it will help many more people out there! Lots of love!

*****

 

What was most fun about playing?

 

  • Seeing my thoughts in visual form in a way I could physically move them, organize them, categorize them.
  • Being with others, changing the way we played each time.
  • Learning, imagining and growing
  • The feelings I will be leaving with: joy, laughter, playfulness
  • The possibility this game allows
  • I came away feeling like we are all on the same team, and I’m a part of it, and it can be fun and exciting. I experienced this at a level so deep there really aren’t words.

What is most exciting to you right now, having played the game?

 

  • Possibility of looking at things from a new lens
  • Having had the visceral experience of how perfect and beautiful and imperative it is that we each have our own personal desires, fascinations…how beautiful it is that we are each so unique. I have so much more appreciation for myself and other people and am kind of in awe that we do as well together as we do.
  • I don’t know if this will make any sense, but I had the oddest, most wonderful sensation…that inside me were gaps that had just been blank spots. Somehow now I’m able to touch them as if I’m doing an online coloring program, and as I touch the empty spot it fills with the selected color and I am flooded with a sense of “I get it”. It’s like an understanding that is too vast to ever explain just fills that place in me. I get it. And it’s so peaceful…the fact that I don’t have to explain, that there is no call to explain and its actually against the rules. That carries  SUCH a sense of peace. Which is a really good thing because I can’t. It would be impossible to put such a complex understanding to words. To borrow a word from Heinlein, I just grokked something.

     

  • As a low hour pilot, I am very excited about feeling completely different about interacting with the control tower. I can now see that before, I feared punishment or judgment from them. Now I see them as a resource…I can say what is true for me and they can help me be safe – for myself and everyone else in the pattern.

     

  • All my life I’ve felt like i lived in a jungle of words that were free to be and do what they wanted, and I was the one trapped on the ground trying to figure them out but always a little (or a lot) behind. In this game it’s like the words are bring required to hold still and I get to be the one who is free. Free to do whatever I want and need to do with them. Explore, figure them out, or not. Whatever. I can work with them or just play. It gets to be up to me.

 

  • I am left feeling totally satisfied and in love with with my own conclusion, that I feel down to my bones:

 

After all this, all is well.The sense of obligation I have felt, to be or to pretend to be anything other than me, who I am, has been vaporized.

 

It’s not that I necessarily know who I am any more than I did before playing…

 

It’s just that its fine to not know.

I can wonder.

Because I don’t have to explain, I don’t have to know.

 

I am free.

And it’s all fine. 

I can carry on.

 

  • I feel like all my life I have picked up and carried other people’s desires, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, definitions, labels, explanations etc as if they were my own. Largely without question…I didn’t even know I was doing it. This feels like my chance to take everything that’s bouncing around in my head, put it on the table and make it be quiet and hold still while I consider it all and make some new decisions. MY decisions.I get to hit re-set and go all the way back to the start, and make MY choices.

 

***

What can you imagine you might be doing differently now, moving  forward, because of something you have realized or remembered?

 

  • Seeing that many of my thoughts/feelings/emotions were not permanent if I don’t want them to be. I can shuffle them aside. Discard them entirely. 
  • Remembering that I have power and control of myself
  • I will be able to view my relationship with my body differently. I can remember this game is life, and all options are actually on the table.
  • I already find myself thinking of different options right in the moment, when I’m talking with someone. And I find myself asking for things, making suggestions, in ways that just didn’t occur to me before.

 

Is there anything else you wish you would be asked?

   

  • No
  • Not that I can think of
  • No, less is more

 

The presentation

 

Did you feel safe playing this game?

  • Yes
  • Yes
  • I felt very safe
  • Yes

 

Was there anything in the introduction that worked especially well, or was particularly helpful?

 

  • I liked being able to figure it out without much direction
  • Being told to just view the words, the questions. Explaining that the point is to not require a point.
  • The CAN/HAVE TO story was a perfect explanation and instantly clicked when you told the story

 

Do you have any suggestions for things that might be done differently that would make engaging with the game easier for you?

   

  • Not at this time
  • I think it was great. The space on the second table was useful
  • I think a few opening prompts are great, but then love it being open and free to the user is great

 

Is there anything this experience has left you wanting more of?

 

  • Ability to simplify my thinking and overthinking by using this tool

 

Is there anything else you would like to say about this experience?

 

 

  • It is a very unique and pioneering method to see, in visual format, a means to inner knowing that can be reflective and fun.
  • I had truly a lot of fun
  • This was really great. I would love to play again.