Classroom Game

• They support large numbers of players. This makes them ideal for classrooms, but also (if you simply take faster turns) for large gatherings like birthday parties.
• They usually require groups and teamwork. Players need to communicate with their group about what they want to do, but also with other groups perhaps become allies.
• They are a great simulation for real-life systems. You can run a bank, you can run a zoo, you can run a government, all over the span of a few weeks and with everyone involved.
• They are physical and simple. There is no time pressure. There is no sitting around a table for two hours. Such big games necessitate simple rules and physical tokens that groups get and exchange. At the same time, you get a lot of time to think about what you want to do next week.

• If you don’t have a “game master”. Perhaps you can’t do it yourself, and nobody else is willing to do it. Somebody needs to run the game and make sure everything stays correct over time.
• As expected, these games really don’t work with few players. With a regular player count (say, 2–6), a regular board game is more suitable.
• If you don’t have the time to run one. They are at their best when spread out, hence why we call them classroom games. You can easily play them faster—in one afternoon—but that does put a lot of pressure on the Game Master. They’ll simply have a lot to do in a short span of time.
• They are very much geared towards education. Some of them have more general adventurous themes, but most of them are focused on important real-life systems and topics.

You always get a ZIP file. When extracted, it contains,

• A guide PDF with instructions and tips for the Game Master.
• A reference PDF with nothing but the specific, hard-coded rules for this game.
• One or more PDFs with all the material to print and perhaps prepare.
• (MAYBE) A digital tool to help run the game. (This isn’t always suitable or needed, and usually won’t be necessary either.)

Reading the guide PDF, and checking your understanding against the rules reference, will usually be enough to run the game well. Enjoy!

This category is a bit special to me. I remember being a young boy, grade 5 or so, elementary school. I already despised school and was frustrated that I had to go … but not today, because today we had no lessons at all.

We had a visit from some people who worked for a charity. I don’t remember which one exactly. One that made sure people in Africa were paid fair wages and had access to clean drinking water.

And what did they do? They gave us all a game. They basically did half of a “Classroom Game”. All day long, we were moving pawns, paying money to imaginary workers, talking to other groups to ask where the heck they were finding clean water, assigning batches of cocoa nuts to the right places, and so forth.

It was so much fun. Everyone loved it. I mean, I remember this day stil, I even remember what the board and the tokens looked like. It made me research what the charity did and discover just how much good we had it in the Netherlands for the first time.

They came back the next year, and then they never came back again. Well, let’s just say, now that I’ve grown up I want to carry on the torch. Classroom Games could be absolutely transformative for children and education in general. Honestly, I wish I’d started making them sooner, because our current offerings are very slim. But here’s to a better future!