Need
Help learners connect historical people, objects, actions, concepts, and events while practicing cause-and-effect and pattern recognition across eras.
Mystory
Mystory
How might a history game make causal thinking and cross-era connections feel like creative play rather than a test of recall?
Mystory is a fully collaborative card game in which time travellers rewrite history together. Players connect cards by era or domain affinity to build a physical timeline, then turn that sequence into one evolving story. Across three prototypes, the design moved away from bidding, numerical attributes, and winning points toward a focused social experience where the pleasure comes from telling amazing stories against the backdrop of history.
AT A GLANCE
- Context
Graduate StudentNew York University2018EDCT-GE 2500: Games and Play in Education
Solution
A two-phase card game: players first construct a timeline by matching era or affinity, then collaboratively narrate a journey between historical events.
Deliverable
A playable, modular game with concise illustrated cards, scaffolded event prompts, complete rules, and a final design shaped by repeated playtesting.
Impact
Each iteration reduced barriers to play. Testing moved attention away from dense text, card selection, and individual scoring and back toward listening, causal links, and a coherent shared narrative.
Takeaway
The strongest version emerged when the mechanics carried the learning work themselves. Matching cards makes relationships across time visible; the laid-out timeline offloads memory; and the absence of individual scoring creates room to listen, take risks, and help one another. Simplifying the game did not dilute its learning goals—it made those goals easier to enact.
Methods & Tools: Learning game design · Paper prototyping · Card and visual design · Rules writing · Playtesting · Iterative design