Liza in Rotterdam: GLUT aka Game of Thrones (Real Estate Edition)

Negotiations, conversations, hesitations, assassinations... (err, wrong game)

The 2nd part (yes, that quick, first part's done) of the UT course took us to a weirdly fantastical (complete with paper money and prop crown) fictional urban world of land grabbers and meddling institutions of power (slant: mine).

Welcome to the world of GLUT.

"GLUT (Gaining from Land Use Transactions), developed by Martim Smolka and Carlos Morales Schechinger, is an educational, multi-player game which illustrates the basic workings of land and property markets."

The video below also explains:

So that's GLUT. Each working group would be one virtual city and play from there. Since there was only one game master, the co-creator himself Carlos, the game was played one city at a time, 2 days per city. (Those who were done shouldn't give out spoilers otherwise it'd ruin the whole 'experience'.) As WG5 aka Verodorca City, we played the game last.

The blocks (as per their colors) represent the lots owned by the teams.

GLUT is really a kind of tabletop role-playing game ala- Dungeons and Dragons, with a game master, complicated rule book, props, costumes and all, set in a city in the context of land use/ real estate markets -- but more complicated in that each role is played by a team (thus, even there, negotiations have to be made from within). Also, there is to be a battle of the cities GLUT finale.

We were grouped into different teams/roles, given the general rules, mechanics and points system of the game, as well as the 'secret' objectives for each role. It's a game, there's gonna be winners and losers, and most importantly, this is still part of the coursework, there's grades to be had. The caveat, however, is that the grades would largely be dependent on how well we do with our group game analysis/report which shall be made/submitted after the games.

Green Team (The Government)

Black Team (iNGO)

White Team (Real Estate Speculators)

Orange Team (The Middle Class)

Blue Team (Commercial)

Red Team (The Poor)


Yellow Team (The Rich) - my team! P.S. Our WG mentor, Carolina, actually played the game with us since she's apparently new to IHS and was encouraged by Carlos to try it.

While I cannot do a recap of what happened throughout the game, I will give my reflections:

It pays to know the rules of the game. The GLUT rules and mechanics are a handful, but really, one must read and understand them thoroughly before going into the game. (TBH, I didn't, so it took me awhile to get the hang of it.)
Things could get aggressive at the second half of the game. Remember, it's still just a game, not worth popping a vein over.
The colored team caps are a nice touch.
The game is fun (could be more fun), but I didn't think the instructive value matched the time spent in playing the game. A more in-depth post-game synthesis is needed, perhaps.
I think this can be better played single-player per role as in D&D - the individual is forced to think/learn for/by himself, and totally eliminates freeloaders.

Like D&D, the fun & crux in GLUT is very much at the hands of the Game Master. Carlos, I bet, is also a darn good Dungeon Master.