Games I’d Love to Steal From

This post is dedicated to Quinns of the always excellent Quinn’s Quest. Last week, on his totally-worth-it Patreon channel he bemoaned the fact that no one had ‘ripped off’ the Alice is Missing TTRPG yet. With all the things he thought it did right (and differently), Quinns was clearly appalled that other designers had not picked up and run with some of its innovations.

Given my previously (semi-seriously) declared intent to steal all the good stuff out of new and brilliant games to use in the classroom, Quinn’s comment got me thinking. What are the games that I’d love to take inspiration from in creating experiences for students? What themes, mechanisms, components and rules to I think could be part of compelling learning experiences?

So here’s a few that spring top mind. This being the Internet, and not a medium of any permanence, I’m sure I’ll be back later to add some more. And perhaps one day soon some I’ll even be able to add comments about how I’ve included some of them in games I’ve created!

• I haven’t even played it yet, but skimming through Asa Donald’s upcoming Spine already makes me twitch with interesting thoughts about classroom application. Just the idea of an ergodic, diegetic text as a classroom workbook is fascinating. I wonder where and how might something like that make the most sense…
• I think there is definitely a place for heavyily scaffolded light-touch roleplaying, drawing on mechanics of games like Fiasco and For the Queen
• I’m fascinated by how Dialect plays with language, and makes linguistic evolution a core mechanic – it feels like that has a place of some kind in an English class!
• Still very much in beta (alpha?) but I’m intrigued by the individual mini-games in Jay Dragon’s Seven Part Pact. Having individual students (or small groups) learn different games that interact with one another could produce really interesting classroom dynamics.
• More and more, I’d like to explore convincing diegetic (in-world) components. Wehrlegig Games do this beautifully, from the resin pieces and fabric board in Pax Pamir to the circular India and the wonderfully tactile metal coins in John Company.
• The code breaking of The Initiative feel like they lend themselves to some engaging classroom challenges.
• Given how much I enjoyed working with solo journaling games for Triptych, I’d like to use a two (or more) player epistolary mechanic,  where students are writing in response to prompts for each other. This is done really well by existing games like Tether and The Machine. I’m also looking forward to seeing how So You’ve Met a Thousand Year Old Vampire works.
• The theme of addressing climate change, and living in a degrowth society is one I’d love to make work in the classroom. It’s just a matter of squeezing the complexity of something like Daybreak into a classroom-sized experience.
• Another area of interest is exploring personality and inter-personal relationships with teenagers, within schools’ increasing focus on student wellbeing. There are so many ways into this area, from simulations like Fog of War to real-world LARP-y games like SuperBetter.