Card Inventors
A card game designed, tested and rebalanced
Designing a single game rather than four separate ones is the load-bearing choice of the programme. The teams work within the same rule system and must develop a strategy of their own without compromising the overall balance; comparing the strategies leads to a question that the data collected can answer. Experiment precedes formalisation: the game is played before it is modified, and a rule is corrected the moment a match reveals its flaw.
- School level
- Lower secondary school · Primary school
- Age
- 8-13 years old
- Structure
- 12 hours · 6 sessions
The programme
How you win
2hA game under minimal rules and analysis of the winning conditions.
The turn and our strategy
2hCollective drafting of the turn sequence and definition of the team strategies.
The cards of our strategy
2hAnalysis of the structure of a card and production of the first team cards.
Strategy against strategy
2hTwo rounds of matches between different teams, with completion of the test sheet.
Levelling the game
2hJoint examination of the results and introduction of one change at a time.
The game is one
2hDrafting of the rulebook in two parts and test through the exchange of decks.
The outcome
The rulebook in two parts, made of the shared document and the sheet of each strategy, and the box with the four decks, which stays with the institute.
For the school
- During the card test the author does not intervene verbally: through the constraint of silence the pupil verifies that a formulation that is clear to whoever produces it may not be clear to whoever receives it.
- A losing strategy is not attributed to individual responsibility: the following session engages all four teams in rebalancing the game.
- Pupils who do not draw are given stickers and picture material.
Bringing this programme to your school
This page can be shared with the school leadership without sending the whole catalogue. A twenty-minute conversation defines the calendar, the number of sessions and the adjustments the institute’s context requires.