Game of Awesome

Game of Awesome is a card game for 3-6 players designed to engage and inspire kids, specifically boys, to tell stories and learn to write. Playing the game helps students generate ideas quickly which they can explore, expand and write stories.
The basic game has been produced as four sets of cards containing topics, themes and ideas that students years 5-8 will find interesting, involving and often ridiculous! The cards can be used independently or mixed and matched to create new combinations and infinitely more ideas.
The game is easy to learn for both students and teachers, quick to play and easily employs a range of learning outcomes by using new rules, templates and other teacher support materials provided as free downloadable, printable files.
Watch the video to find out why Game of Awesome is worth checking out!
- Order Game of Awesome
- Download Game of Awesome
- Teacher support material (TSM)
- Blank card templates and new ways to play
- Thank you
Order Game of Awesome
Order copies of this resource for your school from Down The Back Of The Chair: http://www.thechair.co.nz/
Download Game of Awesome
![]() | Into the Danger Zone!Come and enter the danger-zone. Inside this pack you’ll unlock stories that will thrill, chill and spill right off your page. Stories of action, bravery, fast cars, superheroes, quests and missions. Better bring a change of underpants. Things are about to get real. |
![]() | Adventures in Space and TimePut on your spacesuit. Step into the time machine. Kick your imagination into gear with this set of cards. Do you want to write about life in other times? Become the hero in your own comic book. Fancy battling a robot? Outwitting a dragon? Get out your exercise book, step out of the past, into the future, and beyond! |
![]() | Best. Day. Ever.We all have special days in the year. This set of cards turns your ordinary days into extraordinary ones. The possibilities are endless as to where you’ll end up. And the characters are the people closest to you. That kid on the bus who messes up your hair. Your cousin on the rugby team. Besties, cuzzies, bros and mates. Open this deck and unlock stories about home, whanau, celebrations and romance, and fart jokes. |
![]() | Just the FactsTime for some straight talking. This set of cards allows you to explain things using logic and facts. Write about sports stars, dinosaurs, politicians and other strange and curious beasts. Open this pack and get starters for compelling non-fiction writing. Be a scientist, a historian, a sports journalist or even a speech-writer. |
Teacher support material
![]() These Teacher Support Materials for Game of Awesome provide suggestions on how to use the game most effectively in the classroom. |
![]() The writing planner templates can be used to help a student begin structure their story, poem or opinion piece. The categories of cards support this planning. |
![]() The writing planner templates can be used to help a student begin structure their story, poem or opinion piece. The categories of cards support this planning. |
![]() The writing planner templates can be used to help a student begin structure their story, poem or opinion piece. The categories of cards support this planning. |
![]() The writing planner templates can be used to help a student begin structure their story, poem or opinion piece. The categories of cards support this planning. |
Awesome cards and new ways to play
Game of Awesome is designed to be expanded and remixed by teachers and students. We’ve created handy blank card templates and a whole range of rules variations that teachers and students can use to shape the game however they like.
Awesome card templates
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Awesome cards templates (black) |
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Awesome cards templates (white) |
New ways to play
![]() Storytelling is centre-stage in this variant where players take turns continuing a shared story, trying to include elements from their secret cards. |
![]() Write is MightPlayers build and change one story in the middle of the table, focusing on how the ideas they swap make stories easier or harder to tell. |
![]() Players refine their story by deciding over and over again whether to swap out a current card for a new one. |
![]() Tactical and strategic play is emphasised when players have to make the best use of their entire hand of cards. |
![]() Players pull Idea Cards out of a bowl and act them out for their team to guess. |
![]() Players build and change one story in the middle of the table, focusing on how the ideas they swap make stories easier or harder to tell. |
![]() Players get to make their case to the judge before they make their final decision. |
Thank you
The ideas on the cards were developed with groups of boys from Te Aro School (Wellington) and St. Patrick’s College (Wellington). Special thanks to the teachers of Newtown, Houghton Valley, Korokoro and Kilbirnie Schools who helped with the design of the game.