Research Guides: Educational Games: Worker Placement

In a Worker Placement game, players have some number of tokens representing their workers. These can be assigned using a few different mechanics to sets of actions in the game. The actions, and when they can be performed, often dictate how players earn points or advanced towards possible victory conditions.

As one of the broadest mechanics it can often depend on what it is paired with that determines which soft skills can be fostered and/or how well it matches an educational setting.

In each game the Worker Placement mechanic helps foster a students critical thinking skills as they try to get better at playing the game, but each game is very different due to the varied mechanics used and how they are interrelated to develop the game's rules.

Carcassonne
In a game like Carcassonne, the workers are placed on one of several possible elements that may exist on the tile that you place on the 'board'. Each element scores in different ways and each has a varying level of likelihood of being completed quickly. The more likely that each element is completed quickly is roughly inversely proportional to the possible amount of points that can be scored. This relationship creates the problem solving and critical thinking opportunities for the players.
Agricola
In a game like Agricola, the workers are assigned to actions each round. Each player is assigning one of their workers in turn to a large pool of possible actions. At the end of the round the workers are all returned to the players and the process repeats. For example one of the actions is to go into the forest and harvest lumber (needed in the game to upgrade the house or build fences to pen in your livestock.) If over the course of a round no player takes this action, then the next round more wood is available for harvest. This interplay of when to take an action for some smaller amount of resources and when to Press your luck that it will be available later for a larger amount provides much of the critical thinking.