Energy Levels: A Game Idea

A couple of Fridays ago, one of the students in my creativity cluster, proposed the idea of a boardgame as an educational tool to learn about energy levels and atomic spectroscopy. This made me hunt around to see if anyone had made such a game. The closest I came was “Orbital Battleship” from a 2016 article in the Journal of Chemical Education. It borrows the mechanics of classic Battleship, but with opponents (presumably students learning chemistry) fill out electron configurations of an atom and try to guess their opponent’s atom by calling out orbital names – checking if they are occupied or empty. I didn’t find it very appealing after reading the rules because, while it might be fun the first couple of games, I predict that interest will wane very quickly.

After the meeting, my mind was still buzzing with the idea so I quickly sketched together the basic idea of a game. Here’s my photo proof of my original idea – I am hoping it will get developed further. I think it’s better than my previous back-of-the-envelope design that hasn’t yet seen the light of day, although I did make some progress with the atom cards over winter break.

My yet untitled energy levels game uses a modular board of narrow strips, each with varyingly spaced energy levels. Players need to get from a start to an end point by playing color cards. The colors represent the number of levels traversed, and they can be played as absorption or emission to move up and down the modular ‘maze’. Inability to play a card leads to a step back via infra-red decay. There are also special ultraviolet cards that allow a larger jump in energy levels than usual. I presented my idea to the group the following week. They liked the game and suggested ideas to refine the rules. One student asked what the goal of the game would be. I hadn’t thought about the theme yet, but off the top of my head I suggested ‘electron nirvana’. The electron finds its destination outside of the influence of the atom. I suppose it could go the other way, i.e., the electron from afar finds its true place in its quantum atomic universe.

This past Friday, which was our last meeting of the semester (since we’re moving into finals week), my student who had first suggested the idea, presented a prototype with strips of cardboard and paper cards, illustrated with colors! We didn’t actually play through a game but talked about what the next prototype should like as we refined it. An eraser substituted as a player piece (the electron eraser, I suppose). In the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of that first prototype. Argh!

I think this game idea has actual promise, and I now feel motivated to work on it as summer approaches. My students are looking forward to some playtesting. We talked about game balance, timing, card distribution, etc., and it made me realize that I was being creative in two areas where I have a fair bit of knowledge: chemistry and gaming! Hopefully we’ll have an updated prototype sometime in the summer.

P.S. An unrelated blog post about managing energy levels.

P.P.S. Electrons magically apparate when they traverse energy levels. So says Bohr.

P.P.P.S. Could Orbital Azkaban be a game? Hmm... I'll have to think about it.