The Masters of The Internet

Based on a loose combination of "Spaceteam" and "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes", Masters of the Internet tasks a team with quickly answering questions using fast paced internet research techniques.

Learning Goals

Master of the Internet will teach online research skills as well as team collaboration skills in the context of research. Students will practice quick paced internet searching skills, fine tuning how quickly they can get information thats important to them with their own creative search terms. They will also judge the quality of sources, learn to drill down below the surface level to find answers, and test their reading comprehension in a digital world of often-conflicting information.

Game Development Progress

1/21/16 We have setup the materials for a paper prototype playtest and will be playing the end of this week. We still need to think about the potential for user generated content and potentially next steps would be to frame this in a specific content section.

Setup and Playtest Materials (Paper Prototype)

• The red cards (Select-A-Quest) from Cranium
• One device per player
• A timer
• A game board with 5 slots for cards
• Post-Its
• 1 pen
• At least 4 players

Play:

Round 1:

Select a “Team Captain” Team captain sits in front of the board Every other player turns away from the board and sits at their device Game Master puts the timer in clear view of the Captain Game Master deals out one card to the first 4 slots of the board Team Captain gets 30 seconds to look at the cards After the 30 seconds are up, Team Captain directs their teammates to look up answers on the Internet. The Game Master continually times 30 second intervals. Whenever 30 seconds are up, Game Master removes one card from the board and replaces it with a new one. Unanswered question cards become STRIKES. See below. Begin with the leftmost card and work right, moving the timer along so the captain knows which card is about to vanish. Team Captain can enter an answer at any time by writing it down on a post it and sticking the post it to a card. When this happens, that card is set aside and replaced with a new card Game Master checks answers in real time. Whenever a card is removed for time or answered incorrectly, it becomes a STRIKE If the team has 3 strikes, the round ends and the team loses. The team clears Round 1 when they get 5 correct answers. Reset strikes at the end of the round.

Round 2:

Same as round 1, but with a new team captain. Need 6 correct answers to move to Round 3

Round 3:

Same as round 2, but with a new team captain Use 5 cars instead of 4 Need 6 correct answers

Round 4:

Same as round 3, but with a new team captain Need 7 correct answers to win the game

Content Buckets

For this game, we will need to generate some content for each instance. these "content buckets" are a starting point to work towards.

Politics Climate Change Access to Services (Housing, Healthcare, Education, Income Inequality) Race and Policing/Prison-Industrial-Complex

Society Women’s Equality/Feminism Race and Culture LGBT Equality/Trans Visibility Gun Ownership/Culture

The Internet Internet Geography (Major sites, orgs, subcultural shifts)
Internet History Internet Policy (Net Neutrality, P2P Networking, Digital Divide)

Advocacy Major Orgs (Who are the NRA/HRC?) Internet Activism History (Arab Spring, Stop CISA Internet Blackout, BLM)

Questions for each of these topics can be found here