Chess Attack has its origins way back in the depths of time. Growing up, we often played tabletop games, including both Chess and Dungeons & Dragons. At one point, we were playing quite a bit of Chess, but for D&D me it was a bit boring compared to more “realistic” combat systems. A pawn automatically
On May 1st we had an official book launch via Zoom for “The Day the Pirates Went Mad”, my debut middle-grade historical novel! I read a few excerpts from Emma Sharpe’s adventures and then answered questions; including a “Spoiler Warning” Q&A segment at the end for those who had already read the early release of
What is nugget-based learning? And how is it related to game design? Well…I was crafting the afterword for my historical novel where I mention how research drives continuous learning, and it got me thinking. In this technologically-enabled education climate it’s so easy to, almost accidentally, learn about something new. We’re all learning more and more
As often as not, when we play a game, we aren’t taking a box from off our shelf – we’re playing games from our brains. “Extinction Event” always comes to my mind when thinking of an example of a non-traditional game that just popped into being. It spontaneously spawned from equal-part desires to teach a
Another year is coming to a close, and we’re making plans for the next. We thought we’d share our look back and our look forward. This year has been a challenge in so many ways. But while adapting to on-going restrictions & other issues, we kept busy working on educational games & activities to make
As ye know, we’re all about pirates here at PlayGames2Learn.com. And since we’re especially involved with pirate-related topics these days, we thought why not take it a step further. We’re issuing a friendly creative challenge for this year’s #TalkLikeAPirateDay! (September 19) Make a craft, costume, artwork, or do some other pirate-inspired activity, and share it
During the summer, especially with the current circumstances, parents can find themselves standing in for absent playmates. This is a great opportunity to be an example of good sportsmanship, to recognize effort and individual improvement, call out good ideas and teamwork, and so much more. It’s also a good time to draw out creativity and
After I posted a screenshot of the character sheet template I use to a Facebook writers group, editor and author Jodie Renner asked if I might provide a bit of my thinking behind using this tool. This article is the result… When developing the major characters of my stories, I can’t help but draw upon
Our daughter used this phrase “I am pretending to pretend” in a poem she recently wrote titled “I Am”. She couldn’t say where the inspiration for this line came from, but it made me think of the times when she had a class that didn’t go the way she thought it would. In these cases,
Playing with balls inside the house is quite a thing for us. When our daughter was younger, she was not able to control the balls as well as she can now – it was a common occurrence for them to get away from her. Our kitchen is the kind you can walk through from one