So, I had heard of Johann Sebastian Joust a while ago. It sounded like a blast and seeing the Youtube videos, it immediately became something I wanted to find a way to use in the classroom. Last year, through KickStarter, the creator of the game, Douglas Wilson, and three other independent game developers came together to create a collection of four local (everyone in the same room) competitive multi-player games known as SportsFriends (yes, one word). I followed the game closely, and became pretty excited about the other games in the group as well.
The collection was released on May 6th and with our state standardized tests looming I wasn't sure if I would be able to get it in this school year. That is, until I realized just how hard my kids were working and how they desperately needed something to pick up their spirits as we prepared for these daunting assessments. So, I took the plunge and designed a friendly competition around the game.
The class was broken into three groups. Each team would be represented by one player at a time for a round of Johann Sebastian Joust. The winner's team gained the opportunity to score 9 points, second place could score 6, and third place could score 3 points...if the entire team was able to answer one of the sample test problems correctly. The students were so excited. They would watch the matches of Joust so intently, celebrate (or bemoan) the outcome, and then quickly turn their attention to the problem giving it all they had, as they did not want to let their team down.
