What kind of game is this? what is the benefit to the person playing it?
Thanks for your question. Armis is a high strategy board game, I like to say: 'it's like playing Chess, Checkers, Risk, and Stratego all at the same time'
Chess was designed to be played with deep reflective thought, however Armis was designed to train the subconscious mind for faster thinking. Bullet or speed chess also taps into the same region of the brain Armis focuses on.
If you notice there are many things that we do with our subconscious mind, usually they are things that are slow changing and repetitive, like dribbling a basketball for a basketball player, manually shifting gears for a drive good driver in a manual shift car, or just walking for most of us. As you add complexity to a common chore the thinking move from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind because it requires 'more thought'.
When you dream your subconscious mind is fully engages and also in full control of your body, it is able to speed up your heart rate in order to digest large amounts of food in your stomach just by creating dreams that require you to "do physical activities" with your mind. That is why you are likely to have a nightmares if you go to bed with lots of food in your stomach, your subconscious has to figure out how to digest that food efficiently while you are not actually physically moving. It is your subconscious that moves your body back and forth in order to keep from forming blood clots.
Playing strategy board games enable players to widen the pathways between the conscious and subconscious minds, playing brain games of any kind increases that pathway, playing Armis does it faster and more efficiently. As that pathway widens you are able to analyse more info faster with higher degrees of accuracy, you become what some people refer to as "smarter".
Armis can be used to increase academic performance. Armis shows player how to 'know how to know' -- how to intellectually figure things out. Once the concept of knowing how to acquire knowledge is secure it becomes very easy to apply it in academic environments. We believe:
'A' students are those who know how to know and consistently apply it,
'B' students are those who know how to know but don't regularly advance it,
'C' students often don't know how to know but benefit greatly by their genuine interest in various academic subjects,
'D' students often don't know how to know and have low interest in academic subjects,
and
'F' students often don't care to know how to know,
The Armis for Schools Worldwide program enables ‘C’ and ‘D’ average student to know how to know by way of our 5 step critical thinking process. The process readies them to be ‘A’ and ‘B’ average students in a relatively short period of time.
To us it really doesn't matter if the education is institutional or home grown, the importance is acquiring the skills. Here are our 5 steps to critical thinking during Armis game play juxtaposed with the same steps in relation to academic success:
1) Analysis and Assessment
2) Planning
3) Risk Assessment
4) Action
and
5) Reaction, Effect, and Experience
1) Analysis and Assessment - before you start any endeavor is important to know the rules that govern it. For Armis you should read the rules; the equivalent for any level of school is reading the syllabus.
Then familiarize yourself with the environment, for Armis that means knowing the game board and player pieces; for school that mean knowing your teacher/professor, classmates, school building/campus, and key faculty (Principal, Dean, Advisers).
Now that you know what you are expected to do and where you are expected to perform the next step is to assess values so that you properly budget your efforts and resources.
2) Planning - In Armis there are over a million ways to properly setup , so after a setup is formed you should map and manage offensive and defensive strategies; for school you do the same with respect to an offensive strategy, the defensive strategy is less academic and more social. However, if it can impact your academic performance in a meaningful way it must be factored into your planning.
3) Risk Assessment - this is where you say "What if?", not just "What if he does?", but also "What if she doesn't?" for the game it is weighing probabilities that a player will do, or not do, certain actions; for school it has more to do with what can happen if you don't do as expected or planned. Not only on the macro level: 'what if I don't graduate', but also on the micro level: 'what if I oversleep, barely eat, or fail to exercise', 'what if I skip a class, or a homework assignment?'.
4) Action - for Armis this is where you make your move; for school this is where you: participate in class, hand in homework, take a test, and/or submit a paper.
and
5) Reaction, Effect, and Experience - for Armis it is as much how your opponent’s reacts (or lack of reaction) as much as what effect that specific move has on the rest of the game. For school it is about how the instructor and class respond to your class participation, the teacher's feedback on a homework assignment or term paper, your professor’s feedback on a paper, as well as your academic ranking.
Everything counts, as such the information that make up 1 - 5 including your opponent’s move, we consider to be a single whole experience. Each move you make should be made with the intelligence of your experience. Likewise, everything you do, or don’t do, during your time in school impacts your academic success.