This study aimed to evaluate the educational effects of experiential learning via a tabletop simulation board game on systems thinking among preclinical medical students. A total of 35 preclinical medical students (five students per team) participated in a game called “Friday Night at the ER” (FNER). During the debriefing session, we compared the quality of errors and costs incurred by each team. Participants wrote reflective essays about core strategies, behavioral motives, and their impressions of the game. The core strategies of systems thinking and content analysis were used to analyze the content of the essays. The high-performing team employed core strategies of systems thinking such as collaboration, innovation, and data-driven decision-making among team members. However, the underperforming teams, those failing to apply the three core strategies for systems thinking, failed to respond to unexpected situations at the team level and encountered negative communication as well as conflicts. There was a lack of cooperation among members, and some of them focused more on hospital profits than patient safety. After the game, the students reflected on the importance of systems thinking, communication and teamwork between departments, and professionalism to improve patient safety and quality, individual roles in the system and interactions with other team members, innovation, professionalism, and the efficacy of simulation education. The study’s findings demonstrated that the simulation game based on experiential learning promoted systems thinking among medical students. This simulation game can be used as a basic resource for the development of systems thinking curricula in an era that places increasing importance on health systems science.