Rollama Game Modes

Game Modes Explainer Series

Our 15 game modes have grown through two years of development and improvement. In this video series, I explain the concepts and design choices we made to rigorously maximise learning, while maintaining fun and accessibility for students.

Scoop Snatcher is a multiple-choice quiz game which students play to fill in the blanks in a sentence, answer a question, or classify a word.

Ice cream scoops are stacked up for correct answers, while incorrect answers remove a scoop, to make this into a grammar game rather than a grammar test!

Some of our grammar-focused pages in this game mode include:

Common Noun or Proper Noun – Learners are shown a word and must choose the class to which it belongs. This is relatively simple reinforcement of the 'proper nouns need a capital' rule, which beginners (and some forgetful advanced learners!) should remember.

Change to Present Tense – Similar to the above, but the target tense for the sentences is present.

Space Race is another MCQ variant, this time with a streak points scoring system, designed to focus players’ attention and inspire hard thinking to avoid losing height on Rama’s journey into the outer atmosphere.

There are 10 Space Race pages – try one here: www.rollama.com/spacerace/homophones/index.html

Risky Roll is a multiple-choice quiz with a twist: points increase exponentially with each correct answer, but must be banked to count. Get one wrong and lose the lot!

We have 21 Risky Roll pages – try one here: www.rollama/pickapair/pickapair-antonyms/index.html

Egg Game is our ‘risk/reward’ multiple-choice quiz game mode, where users must protect their eggs by showing their conviction or spreading the risk.

There are 9 Egg Game pages – try one here: www.rollama.com/egg-game/egg-game-confusingwords/index.html

Pick-a-Pair is our matching game, where an array of 12 cards is displayed, and players must find the pairs to clear the board.

There are 19 Pick-a-Pair games – try one here: www.rollama.com/pickapair/pickapair-antonyms/index.html

Tricky Trios is our most recent addition, released in September 2022. Players match up three related words – homophones, word families, etc.

Topping the world leaderboard (for members only) will be easier for a while, since the game is new… [Nerd note: the red of the title matches Nottingham Forest (my team) – occasionally known as the Tricky Trees 😅]

We have four Tricky Trios pages so far – try one here: www.rollama.com/tricky-trios/homophones/index.html

Arrange-a-Rama is our sorting game, where players categorise word cards into sets. Tap the category, then tap the cards which belong in that set.

There are 15 Arrange-a-Rama games – try one here: www.rollama.com/arrangearama/arrangearama-spelling-ar-er-or/index.html

More coming soon!