Game 1: Get a feel

For both you and your class, the best way to get oriented to Frankenstories is to jump in and play a casual, quick-start, narrative game on standard settings.

While Frankenstories games can be customised in all sorts of ways, these are the default settings:

5 rounds (+1 title round)
280 characters per round (+1 limit break per player)
80 seconds writing per round (+50% bonus time in R1&5)
60 seconds voting per round (+50% bonus time in R1&5)
Players only see 4 randomly-assigned peer replies in each voting round (to prevent reading overwhelm)
Random narrative prompt
Approval mode (i.e. reply moderation) is switched on (so you can reject any outright trolling)
Players are given randomly generated names (to prevent inappropriate student-created player names)
Tiebreaker voting rounds are switched off (to keep the game moving)

And a casual game has the following properties:

Players join using a game code rather than by logging in.
Since players don't need to be logged in, the moderator may not be able to see persistent player names in the moderation screen; just their temporary in-game aliases.

For an average class size, a standard game takes ~30 minutes to complete.

Keep on top of Approval mode

We have 'Approval mode' ON by default so that teachers can remove inappropriate or unsafe replies before other students see them.

Frankenstories response with reject option

You will need to manually approve rounds to move the game forward

Each round, you will need to approve the writing phase before the game proceeds to voting.

For at least the first few rounds, we recommend letting through low-effort, derailing, or messy replies while your students get a hang of the game mechanics and only block responses that are offensive.

If you feel comfortable, you may even want to turn Approval mode off before playing to keep the game flowing.

Want a shorter game?

Try 3 writing rounds instead of 5.

Review and possibly re-roll the random prompt before you play

Random prompts are a random combination of text and image.
If you don’t like the prompt or don't think it's appropriate for your class, you can re-roll the text, image, or both.
You can also choose image and text themes for random prompts.

Swear filter and waving

These are two useful default settings, but you can change them if you want:

The swear filter swaps swear words for **** (though it's not foolproof).
Waving is fun in small remote groups, but can be annoying in a big class because students spam the wave button.

Give students the 6-digit game code and have them click to join the game from the Frankenstories home page.

What to expect

Unless you have a class of skilled writers, the first game will probably be a bit scrappy. Here's a typical example:

Screenshot Game 1 Adventures of O Block Frankenstories

Game 1 is about getting the hang of the mechanics

As they play, players will realise that:

There are writing and title rounds with time and character limits.
Everyone is writing about the same thing at the same time.
Players vote on each other's replies.
When voting, players might only see a maximum of four other replies (meaning they may not see all entries).
Players can vote for one reply and heart as many as they like.
Some votes trigger tie-breaks.
The winning response gets stitched into the spine of the story.
When the round repeats, players carry on from the winning reply.

The game might have been chaotic, but now everyone understands how the game works!

You can join the game as a player (but remember to go back to the other tab and approve the round if you haven't turned off Approval mode.)

You can also open a projectable view of the game to display via a data projector while moderating player responses on another screen.

Teaching with Frankenstories

Game 1: Get a feel