iMath Game Designer Program — Phase 1, My Game Idea: seven printable landscape sheets
📋 Running Phase 1
Instructor guideWhat's in this file — 7 pages
- Page 1 (this one) is yours. Don't hand it out.
- Pages 2–5 are the designer's — warm up, describe, draw, write.
- Pages 6–7 are spares: a lined writing sheet and a blank drawing sheet. Run a stack of each; they are the answer to "I need more room" and to a second character.
- Landscape. The file sets it, but check the preview — every sheet pairs an example with the child's own version, side by side, and portrait breaks that pairing.
- Print pages 2–5 double. Not for two classes — for one. Designers change their minds halfway through, and a third grader erasing a whole box leaves a grey smear the page reader cannot see through. A fresh sheet costs a penny; a re-do costs the lesson.
- Black and white is fine — the ✔ / ✘ marks carry the meaning, not the colour.
Pencils, not pens
Say it out loud at the start and mean it. Pen turns every change into a scribble, and scribbles are the single biggest reason a page comes back unreadable.
The designer name is the island nickname
Not their real name. The island gives every player a rolled nickname — SpeedyPanda, ZoomyBiscuit — and that nickname is the only name iMath ever stores. Have them copy it off their screen onto sheet 1 before anything else, and onto the header of every sheet after that. You hold the paper list matching nicknames to children; the software never sees it.
Sheets get separated. A sheet with no name on it cannot be given back to anyone.
Phase 1 at the table — about 45 minutes
- Say this first: "These four sheets turn into a real game on our island." What they write is the inspiration; the builders bring it to life in the island's style, so some details change on the way — which happens to professional designers every day.
- 5 min — designer sheet 1. Copy the nickname, trace the line, then read the four do/don't pairs together. Everyone starts at the same moment.
- 12 min — sheet 2. Read the green column aloud first; the detail in it is the standard you are setting.
- 12 min — sheet 3, drawing. Colored pencils out.
- 15 min — sheet 4, the paragraph. The two checkboxes at the bottom are the whole assessment; have them tick their own before handing it in.
Extra pages are a win, not a problem
Designers who want more room should get it: extra writing sheets, extra character drawings, a whole second page of ideas. Ask them to write their nickname at the top of every extra page and number them (2 of 3). Staple each designer's set together before you photograph it.
Make the example your own
The green column shows Sky Hopper, a game already on the island. A class that has played something else together will read your example faster than ours. On screen, click ✏️ Edit the example at the top of this page, type over the green boxes, and print — your version is saved in this browser. ↺ Restore Sky Hopper puts ours back.
Better still: fill in a blank set yourself, by hand, in front of the class. They copy the level of detail they see.
Why we make such a fuss about handwriting
These pages get photographed and read by software, and what it reads is what the builders build. Cramped letters and half-erased words genuinely turn into a worse game — which third graders find far more motivating than "be neat." Designer sheet 1 is that whole lesson; don't skip it to save five minutes.
Photographing the finished sheets
Flat, from directly above, in ordinary room light. All four black corner squares must be in the frame — that is how the software finds the edges of the page. No flash; the glare wipes out pencil.
What comes next
Phase 1 is the idea. Phases 2–6 — game loops, playtesting, the pitch — are in the main packet, which prints portrait.
What Phase 1 is graded on
| Look for | ⭐ |
|---|---|
| Every box on sheets 2–3 answered with real detail, not one word W.3.2 | ☆☆☆☆ |
| Feelings chosen deliberately; colors match the world L.3.3.a | ☆☆☆☆ |
| Paragraph runs in order, three or more connecting words W.3.2.c | ☆☆☆☆ |
| Favorite part named and a reason given W.3.1 | ☆☆☆☆ |
| Capitals, end punctuation, legible spacing L.3.1 · L.3.2 | ☆☆☆☆ |
✋ Start here — your name, and your best writing
Sheet 1 of 4First — warm up
Copy it exactly off your island player — like SpeedyPanda or ZoomyBiscuit. Not your real name. This is how we know whose game it is.
Now — how to write so the builders can read it
💡 Describe your game
Sheet 2 of 4 iMath nicknameExample — a real game on our island
Your turn
Sky Hopper
climbing — my own kind of game
What KIND of game is it? Circle ONE.
A tower of little clouds going straight up over the ocean, early in the morning.
excited · brave · speedy
How should players FEEL? Put an ✗ in up to 3 boxes.
Your game's colors!
Color these in — the builders really use them.
You climb by answering. Pink fog creeps up from below the whole time, so you can never stop and think for long. Birds fly past and knock you off if you are not watching.
🖍️ Draw the character
Sheet 3 of 4 iMath nicknameExample — Sky Hopper's character
Your turn
Big. Dark lines. Fills most of the box. You can still see every part of it from across the room — that is the test.
Who does the player get to BE? Make your character big — use the whole box. You do not have to fill in every corner, but the more colors and detail you use, the more the builders can put in the game.
It's a frog, with its eyes right on top of its head — so it can watch the next cloud while it crouches.
It can grab a parachute. If a bird knocks it off, the chute catches it halfway down instead of losing the whole climb.
More characters in your game? Ask for another drawing sheet and draw each one — friends, helpers, whoever is chasing you.
✍️ Tell me about your game
Sheet 4 of 4 iMath nicknameExample — the whole paragraph
In my game, you are a green frog climbing a tower of clouds. First, a math problem appears on the cloud above you. Next, you type the answer, and if you get it right the frog jumps up onto that cloud. Then, pink fog creeps up from the bottom of the screen, so you cannot stop and think for too long. Also, birds fly across and knock you off if you are not watching for them. Last, you win when you get all the way up to 1,000 meters. My favorite part is grabbing a parachute, because then when a bird knocks you off you float down and keep half your climb instead of losing all of it.
Yellow = the connecting words. Underlined = the favorite part, and the reason why. Notice it never says "my game is about" — it just starts telling you.
In my game, you are a frog. You go up. There is fog.
Both of these describe the same game. Only one of them tells the builders what to build. Which one would you rather play?
Your turn
Ran out of lines? Good. Ask for another writing sheet and keep going — put your nickname at the top of it.