We had the privilege of interviewing Mr Apurv Nagpal and get to know more about his web-based strategy game, ‘CrossPunk’, which puts a fresh spin on word games, with unique rules and fun challenges. Professor Nagpal is a visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad, where he teaches a highly sought-after course on Innovation (which he developed himself from scratch). An IIM-A alumnus himself, Mr Nagpal has built an impressive resume, accomplishing the sort of corporate success that we students dream of, with his last position being CEO, Saregama India Ltd.
The interview delves deeper into CrossPunk as we try to understand the inspiration behind the game, how Mr Nagpal designed a whole world around it that continues to grow even today, and most importantly, how this simple game inculcates in its players not just the principles of management, but fundamental life lessons.
Firstly I'd like to thank you for taking this time to share your journey and insights with us. We are excited to learn about CrossPunk and explore how it intertwines with management and the principles that we study as management students.
Got it. That's an interesting take. Look forward to answering questions.
So before we understand more about CrossPunk as the game, we want to find out your inspiration behind creating it. So can you share a bit about the journey that led to its inception?
I had played Wordle as had so many of us during COVID. And I think once you play consecutively for a bit, the flaws of that game become more and more apparent. And then it just started a process in my head of thinking, how would I overcome those flaws? And that's eventually what led to CrossPunk.
Right. So CrossPunk is a very unique concept. Like even the name itself seems like ‘Crossword’, but it’s a lot more than that. So what motivated you to combine the strategy or resource management, time management and decision making into this format?
Once you decide on the format, and my best bouncing boards are my kids, then that falls in place. I'm also luckily at the stage of life where I don't have to worry too much about, you know, the creation process or the cost. I just have to decide on which things do I focus or devote my time on, and this seemed to be a winner. Again, my kids, they said, “Oh, this sounds very interesting.” We actually created a version, that's thanks to my son, using Excel. We created a macro based version, tried it out with a few people. Again, got very good responses, and then we went ahead and did this.
So was CrossPunk just something you wanted to do to improve upon Wordle? Is this purely a passion project, or did you take it up as an educator or with some other ulterior motive?
So I think at the starting point, the inspiration was, “Let's improve Wordle,” because I got really upset with some of the things about that game.
But I think then it started to take shape, and I began cooking something in my head. As a person who has innovated for many decades now, in the corporate, and in teaching innovation here at my alma mater in Ahmedabad, you always take time to cook something. So I think it's become something far, far more than what Wordle was ever intended to be.
Today there's no similarity between the two. Whereas the starting point may have been Wordle in that sense, right? So it is a passion project. I don't have any thoughts on monetizing it right now.
I've had different companies do a game for themselves, including one by one of my former students, who's working with a start-up. I've had people - food companies, etc, do it as well. But I'm not charging right now. Right now, I’m just keeping it open and spreading it and therefore I called it a passion project.
The game emphasizes on surviving under challenging circumstances, so what skills or values do you think players develop while engaging with CrossPunk?
I think it's about just being able to make the calls, not worry about the outcome and going ahead with what you believe is right. And then obviously adapting when you get a little bit of a jolt. So I think it teaches you adaptability because you may sometimes begin a game, and for example, today's game is on rivers. But you may think, you know, a river and that's likely to be there, but maybe it's not. And then you have to adapt quickly because you'll get a little bit of a jolt if you don't get it right.
It's quite obvious that it involves decision making under time constraints. So how do you see these elements aligning with the principles of management as we students are learning?
It's not just about principle of management. I think it's about life lessons, right? So the principles of management should at the end align to life lessons, isn't it? And isn't that what we are expected to do in life, which is make decisions based on time or resource constraints? So for example, here, the resource constraint could even be the lives lost. So you don't just have time because if you want to be high on the leaderboard, you want to be quick as well, but also lose less lives and then get it right eventually.
So there's a concept called gamification where you create a platform where you're learning things while playing games. There are different levels and badges and this has been introduced in our culture as well. The concept has been there for decades and has even been included in management training programs for a while now. The Game of Work is a great book which relates learning about any working condition via playing a game, and studies have been conducted by MIT that demonstrate the significant impact of gamification on improving learning outcomes as well as the improved concentration of the person who's learning. So, how do you see games like CrossPunk being utilized to teach critical management skills even? And could gamification be an integral part of our learning process moving forward?
I think let's take your second question first, regarding gamification. You yourself mentioned that the concept has been around for decades. One can go back to the first Monopoly set being invented or the first Scrabble one coming up. And I think those teach so many lessons at so many levels. And coming back again to the point I made about, I always feel management has to be part of life, not life part of management. So there are so many life lessons you can learn while playing Monopoly. That was true for us when we were teenagers, it's true for my kids, it's true for my nephews, etc. Also, what changes is maybe the tech. So you can have Monopoly as a board game, you can have it as an app. You can also now, the latest round is a pack of cards. So Monopoly, you can play as something called Monopoly Deal, which is there. So again, there's innovation even there.
But the fact is, it still continues to teach you lessons. And like I said, again, which link back to life, not just management. The same thing holds true for CrossPunk. Right now, it's a web version, which teaches you decision making. It, in fact, helps you explore the world because right now we're doing a travel series, and you're going to different parts of the world, basis people who've lived there, grown up there, etc. And they introduce you to that country. So we've had somebody from Sweden, who's taken us along the high coast of Sweden. We've had people from Portugal, we've had people from various parts of the world, Japan, etc, many regions in India. So you're learning about those places. We've also done different series, whether it's foods or whether it's, you know, cruise liners, airlines, crochet, so multiple skills, etc. coming in. So I think anything, any learning, anything which builds your knowledge or your skills is good for you.
I'll keep it at that as a very basic principle behind CrossPunk. The adaptability of the game, which is, you can have a different theme. So I've had a game on IIM Ahmedabad and, you know, any IIM alumni will know the things that make Ahmedabad unique. So those kind of things are mentioned over there as well. You could, for example, create one around DSE and what makes Delhi School of Economics unique or Delhi University. I think just a few days ago, we had something on Delhi. No, sorry, it's coming up in a couple of days, something on Delhi. So yeah, the adaptability is I think its biggest virtue. Unlike a Wordle, it's not restricted to a, you know, is it a five letter word? It's not restricted to a five letter word. And so you can go for broke, I mean, up to 10 characters. That works.
You make it sound really interesting. This definitely provokes my interest into diving deeper into the game.
My perspective would be - create a game, and then I’ll know that you're interested. So I look forward to getting that from you at some point.
I’m glad that you mentioned this aspect of CrossPunk. To clarify, can anyone send a contribution to a topic or a game, and if so, what is the process to do so?
Literally anyone can. The only things that we are restricted by right now is that only I post because, again, I'm the only one who has the, you know, the wherewithal in the sense of the admin rights plus the knowledge of what topics have already been played. And also the game doesn’t have the ability to differentiate right now between one word and two words. So, for example, if I'm still continuing with the travel series, you can't do a San Francisco because that's two words. But you can do, let's say, Washington. We are limited by that, and you have to send them to me, whether through any social media, or some other medium. I'll then put it up and you get acknowledgement in the beginning as a game contributor.
So would it be alright with you if, working together with our batchmates, we could get some contributions for the game?
Oh, we would love that. I think right now I'm still kind of thinking of continuing the travel series for a bit. So if it's on a relevant topic, that will really work. As an aside, there are quite a few innovations, which if you find if you go behind the scenes, and if you explore the ‘How to Play’ and all that properly. For example, one thing I have is customized leaderboards.
If you want to play and track your scores, for instance, versus your family, you can create a leaderboard, title it whatever you want, invite people to join that leaderboard. So that's one with family, you can create one with your class, you can create one for your whole college, etc. So that's one of the things that I came up with. Even being able to invite other people to contribute games was an innovation, I think, as far as most of the games out there are concerned.
In fact, depending on the player level you choose, you can customise different little aspects of the game. This includes changing the theme music, the background theme, etc, etc. So again, all those options exist in CrossPunk.
Building a community around the game would be really nice. We can absolutely try to work something out with our college- maybe a competition or something of the sort.
Just one final question. As students of management, we often look for ways to enhance our decision making and problem solving skills. These words are repeatedly mentioned throughout the course, along with creative thinking. So what advice would you give us to develop more creative thinking? Maybe playing CrossPunk could be one of the ways to do that.
I think it's about trying different situations and being open to experiences, new experiences. A lot of students I notice now prefer to tread the safe paths. So it's almost as if, you know, by the time you join your postgrad, whatever stream that may be in, you guys almost know the kind of job that you want.
And then you tailor everything during your postgrad towards that job. You, in fact, exclude certain activities or clubs or, you know, courses just because you believe that's your path. And, you know, in a way that is so sad, isn't it? Because you're missing out on probably your life's final student days and new experiences in that sense, because you're choosing to play safe.
So I guess being open to new experiences constantly, therefore being a student of life would be one way to definitely enhance your creativity, decision making, and so on and so forth.
Discussion
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