Create your own games

On Helpful Games, teachers and parents can create their own games for their students. To create a game follow these steps:

  1. Log in as a teacher or parent.
  2. On the member page, click on the My games button.
  3. Click the button Create new game, which will forward you to a form where you create your game.
    1. Give the game an informative name. A suitable name can be Poisonous snakes in Australia and a completely inappropriate name is, for example, Game no 1.
    2. Write a short description of what the game is about. This text is visible for the students in their lists of games so it comes to capturing the player’s curiosity. A good description of the above game is Practise to recognize Australia’s most venomous snakes. With pictures and texts, you learn to recognize nine of the 10 most venomous snakes in the world.
    3. Write a longer description of the game. This text is visible on the game’s page under the heading Instructions to this game. Helpfulgames automatically generate some text about how to play your game so you do not need to describe how to play the game type, but here is a good example for the game above: In this game you will learn about Australia’s 20 most venomous snakes. Levels have increasing difficulty so you are advised to start at level 1 and work your way up. If you think it’s hard, you can click the button Give up, which will let you see the correct answer and hopefully the level will be a little easier on your next attempt.
    4. Select the subject for the game. The game must qualify in one of the predefined subjects on Helpfulgames. If you have a game that spans two or more subjects, you should consider splitting the levels into two or more games.
    5. Define the game’s target audience. How old should the student be to play this game?
    6. Create game levels.
      1. Click om the button Add new game level.
      2. Select game type. You must select game type for each level of the game. We’re constantly adding new game types. Right now, you can choose between these types:
        1. Multiple choice – The student gets a text question with or without an accompanying picture, video or audio file and get to choose between 2-3 possible answers.
        2. Questions with text answers – The student gets a text question with our without an accompanying picture, video or audio file and should write the correct answer herself.
        3. Letter grid – The student gets a grid of letters and must connect the letters to the correct answer.
        4. Cloze test – A text where some of the words have been removed or replaced with a dropdown.
        5. Image markups – An image where the student will match questions with markings in the image.
        6. Memory – Match two cards at until all pairs of cards have been found.
        7. Guess wordWords and sentences should be guessed by choosing letters in the alphabet.
      3. Click the button Select game type below the chosen game type. The game level will then be added to your list of game levels in the game.
      4. The newly created game level has no content yet. Therefore, click the edit button on the newly created game level to open a dialog box where you can fill the game level with content.
        1. Give the game level an informative name. Write eg Find the snake. Bad names are names that doesn’t say anything about what the level is about, for example, Level 1, Level 1, One. Feel free to give the level a second name. It will appear at the top of the button for the level when the student selects level in the game. In the above example, a good second name may be Picture question.
        2. Fill the game level with as much content as you think that the game level should contain. In some game types you may even import questions you have created in Excel files. In the game types supporting this kind of import, there’s a button Import from Excel.
        3. Click the OK button when finished.
    7. Select access for the game. It is recommended that you select No one as long as you are making the game, but you should then, when done, select My groups. If you select My groups, all students in the groups you have access to, will be able to play your game. When you have tested the game on your students and want other teachers’ students to have a chance to play your game, feel free to change access to Everyone. Then someone from us at Helpfulgames will review the game based on our requirements for public games. If it meets the requirements we will approve it and it will then be publicly available for everyone to play.
    8. When you are finished with the game, click the Create the game button.

If you want to try the new game, click on the play button next to the game’s name in the list of your games. This will take you to the game page and you can play your creation!

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