This is the second game I designed to stress education problems. The rule is simple, players role a dice to determine how to move on the map. Different points on the dice represent different kind of movements and activities. The first image shows the rules and the second image shows the map. The starting point ins marked green and the end goal is marked red.
Looking at the map, the goal is very simple and obvious, you will win this game by taking a simple step to the front. But if you follow the rules of the dice points, you will find this goal hard or even impossible to reach.
I want to use this game to represent the conflict between complex and maybe useless rules with simple solution in education. I also want to use English teaching in China as an example. Teachers spared a lot of effort on teaching grammar. There are many complicated rules, and students do tones of exercises to become experts in grammar. But this couldn’t make them good English speakers. Sometimes, focusing to much on rules and regulations might lead you further from your real goal.