A classroom game series
Studio
Quest
Five free browser games that teach the elements and principles of design by putting them in students’ hands. Built for Art & Design classrooms, from college studios to kindergarten.
The games
Pick a quest
Each game opens full screen in a new tab. Every one has a team game with a timer, a practice mode, and homework with a PDF students turn in.
Game 1
Elements and Principles
A review board game. Spin the wheel, answer the cards, and race the other teams to twelve points.
Game 2
Color Lab
Ten hands-on labs. Mix paint and light, build the color wheels, and test value, harmony, temperature and mood.
Game 3
Composition Conundrums
Thirty broken compositions in ten rooms. Diagnose what’s wrong, then fix the picture by moving, resizing and re-valuing shapes.
Game 4
Dimensional Dichotomy
Flat or deep? Still or moving? Nine rooms on shape, form, space and time, four of them in live 3D: spin forms, move the sun, find the vanishing point, then animate.
Game 5
Studio Quest: Kids
Paddle the Design Sprite’s canoe to eight Design Islands to explore line, shape, color, texture, pattern, balance and scale. A friendly voice reads every step, and stars reward trying.
How it works
Three ways to play
The college and high school games share the same three modes, so once a class learns one, they know them all.
Class game
Two to four teams take turns on the big screen with a timer. Scores save in the browser, so a game can run across several class meetings as one Session.
Practice
Students play on their own, at their own pace, with hints and explanations after every answer. Nothing is scored.
Homework
One try per activity. Students save a PDF of their work with a score code that you can check, so the grade can’t be edited.
For instructors
The Educator’s Portal
Build a homework assignment from 44 modules across the four college games, then send your students one link.
- 1Pick the rooms, labs and cards you want, or let the portal choose a few at random.
- 2Copy the student link into your LMS, or download a student page.
- 3Students play each module and turn in one combined PDF with a check code you verify in the portal.
Your guide
Meet the Design Sprite
The Sprite cheers, thinks, and groans along with every answer in every game.
- Instructors can add a photo for each of eight feelings, so the guide on the big screen looks like you.
- In Studio Quest: Kids, the “Be the Sprite!” button lets young artists paddle the canoe themselves.
- Photos stay in that browser on that computer. Nothing is uploaded.