Adapting commercial board and card games for educational purposes in higher education

Lewis, Alyson Kate and Pocknell, Naomi 2026. Adapting commercial board and card games for educational purposes in higher education. Journal of Play in Adulthood , 1720. 10.5920/jpa.1720 Item availability restricted.

	PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB)
Preview	PDF (Provisional file) - Accepted Post-Print Version Download (17kB) | Preview

Abstract

Adapting commercial games for educational purposes in Higher Education has not been widely investigated. In this practice-based paper we briefly summarise the current literature relating to the benefits and challenges of playing board and card games in HE, before critically appraising six board games designed by UK universities for educational purposes. We found that more models exist to support university staff and students for designing a new game than for adapting commercial games for educational purposes. Therefore we use the findings from the critical appraisal and identify suggestions for adapting commercial games for educational purposes. As a source of support for staff and students we list empirical examples from the literature where commercial games have been adapted before reflecting on our experiences of adapting three commercial games – Herd Mentality, Taboo and Monopoly. Despite our processes being similar in nature, the temporal aspect varied depending on the stage of the adaptation and the type of game. We conclude that it can be more straightforward and less time consuming to adapt an existing game than design a new one, but it depends on the aim of the game, the intended learning outcome, the target audience, duration of playing time, and type of game and design features.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Professional Services > Academic & Student Support Service
Publisher:	University of Huddersfield Press
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	3 June 2026
Date of Acceptance:	11 May 2026
Last Modified:	02 Aug 2026 09:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/187280

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item