The School Games: Giant Board Games
I have four games to share with you. Below, there is a video explaining each game. You can also download the draft rules in pdf format.
Before you watch, there are some things to bear in mind…
- We want players to be able to practise these games at school before the team takes part in any competition. So we need games that have interesting choices and offer strategic decision making. Therefore, depending on how used to playing games you are, they make take you a little while to get your head around. Secondary school aged learners are used to applying themselves to different kinds of puzzles and you may well be more daunted by looking at these games than they would be. Please don’t take that the wrong way! That said… none of the games are particularly complex.
- It’s easier to understand how to play a game when you have it in front of you. Lots of people prefer to learn games by playing – you don’t have that advantage here.
- I’ve tried to make four quite different games that require different thought processes and physical movement. But I also want to create games that hang together well as a set – so there are some themes, like towers and mirrors, that crop up in multiple games – to give the set a cohesive feel.
- I’ve tried to keep the equipment used to some standard pieces. A mini (tabletop) set can easily be assembled from downloaded sheets and coloured counters. Large versions can be created with chalk drawn grids and some PE equipment that is in school.
- In the videos you’ll notice I say that there are some things we’ll have to test to make decisions about. That is the purpose of the experimentation phase. On our trial event in July we will be able to test slight changes to the games and make decisions on what works best.
- It’s hard to determine the length of time that teams will need on each game. We need to standardise it so that teams doing different games finish at the same time. We’ll also need to consider how this impacts the running of the event and the amount of ‘reset’ time each game requires.
If you have questions or comments, please email me on ellie@thedarkimp.com.