Game On: A Playful Approach to Student-Centered Tabletop Game Design presents a complete course on how to teach game design to children of all ages. This practical guide combines deep exploration of game design fundamentals with hands-on activities for the reader as well as the classroom. Learn game design by doing; design games whole or in part as you develop your own designer skills.

The book is divided into five sections corresponding to the stages in the Design Thinking Process:

Empathy: Understanding the needs of the user, both for students and teachers for structuring and teaching game design

Define: What is a game, Theme, Conflict, Victory Conditions Objectives & Ways Games End, The Physical Game & Components, Gameplay, and Basic Probability for Designers.

Ideate: Strategies to brainstorm ideas for a game

Prototype: Proof of Concept, Rapid Iteration, plus game design projects

Test: Playtesting and Feedback

Assess: Using feedback to improve a game, writing rules, and assessment tools for teachers, and alignment to academic standards and youth development programs

Game design is an interdisciplinary endeavor that fosters the development of a designer’s mindset while having fun.

An award-winning teacher and designer, Kathleen Mercury, M.A.T., M.E.T., has been pushing the boundaries of using design thinking to merge game design and instruction from elementary to collegiate levels for over 20 years. She has taught everything from the core subjects to Design and Gifted Intervention in schools from the Midwest to California to overseas in Bucharest, Romania. Currently, she is a Lecturer in the School of Education at California Polytechnic Humboldt teaching and supervising student teachers. Kathleen is a published tabletop game designer with Greece Lightning (2021) and upcoming titles Tulip Season (2024), with others in the works. Kathleen thinks happiness comes from being able to create the life you want, and she feels very fortunate that she's been able to do that. www.KathleenMercury.com