by Carrie Wiser, Senior Instructional Designer, The Game Agency
JEOPARDY!® is a quiz show game watched by over 27 million viewers each week, many of whom are likely your employees! The game has the unique format of presenting players with clues to which they need to respond in the form of a question. In this case, “What is JEOPARDY!?” would be the correct response. The nontraditional answer-question format drives players to think about information in new and different ways.
In the training space, JEOPARDY! is great for assessing knowledge before a training session and ensuring the content sticks post-training. It is also a fun way to bring people together during a live or virtual event. Well-crafted clues and feedback help players connect what they have learned to what they already know and even discover new insights. As JEOPARDY! fan Margaret Plotkin says, “It’s not just that I remember a lot of facts, but I can use what I do know to figure out something I don’t know.” (Jeopardy! website).
The Game Agency, in partnership with Jeopardy! Productions, has created the only officially licensed JEOPARDY! game for training and education as part of the 10-game collection in The Training Arcade®. Why should you use this game mechanic instead of one of the many “fake” templates that are available? Here are five ways this official JEOPARDY! training game makes the experience more fun, engaging, and effective.
1. It’s authentic
“This is JEOPARDY!” If you watch the television show, you are familiar with Johnny Gilbert’s signature opening line. The Training Arcades’s game includes Gilbert’s opening and other recognizable sound bytes from the show. It also includes JEOPARDY!’s official “think” music, category board, studio imagery, and color scheme. Lastly, the player can wager on a “Daily Double,” “Double JEOPARDY!” and “Final JEOPARDY!”
From a game design perspective, these aesthetics set the tone and create an atmosphere of fun and familiarity. They generate excitement among fans who want to see how they compete in an officially-licensed version of the popular television game. All of these factors help capture attention and drive motivation and engagement, resulting in a positive impact on learning.
It’s also important to note that JEOPARDY!® is trademarked, so using other templates is not only inauthentic—it may be copyright infringement. Try a single-player game here to experience it for yourself!
2. It’s flexible
On the game show, a JEOPARDY!® round is 30 questions (6 categories with 5 questions each). Aided by the magic of TV editing, each round takes 7-8 minutes to complete. In a training environment, 30 clues can take half of an hour or more. Luckily, the JEOPARDY!®training game is flexible. You can create anything from a quick 2 x 2 mini-game to a 6 x 5 full-length experience. The game will automatically resize the board according to the number of clues you’ve created. In addition to customizing the number of categories and clues, you can choose a mode that best suits your training needs. You can boost engagement with asynchronous single-player games. Or, you can run a live multiplayer event in person or in a virtual group setting. Moderating a multiplayer game using the Instructor Led Training mode is a simple step-by-step process. We have a user guide as well as a customer success manager to show you the way.
You can also use the built-in leaderboard to support a spirit of friendly competition. It works in both solo and multiplayer modes, and you can turn it on or off depending on your training goals.
3. It’s easy and fast
It can take hours to create a fake JEOPARDY! game in Microsoft PowerPoint®, Adobe Captivate, or Articulate Storyline 360. Why do that when a template is already built for you? The Training Arcade’s training game is incredibly easy to use. You simply type your clues and answers in the text editor. You do not have to worry about formatting slides or pages, and it is easy to update your text if the content changes over time. You can enhance your game with:
- Images or videos as the clues
- Custom feedback (corrective feedback and/or related tips or insights)
- Advanced feedback after each clue (additional slides with text, images, or video)
- Text-based learning content
- Videos that expand upon or clarify information in a clue
After you build the game, simply select a button to Publish. You can share a link to the game via email or chat, add a URL or web object to your eLearning course, export it to run on your LMS, or add it to your intranet within an iFrame. The published game will automatically include all of the authentic audio and visual content.
4. It’s responsive
If you want to hold the attention of your audience, think beyond training at a desktop workstation. Over the last 5 years, mobile phones have become ingrained into our daily lives and completely surpassed desktops in market share (Statcounter, August 2022). Your training content must be convenient and adapt to whatever device learners are using. Like all of The Training Arcade games, JEOPARDY!®displays well on desktop, tablet, and mobile. It can be played during a teleconference call, an eLearning course, or independently through any browser. The audio and visual assets have been compressed and optimized so that they look great and work well even on slower internet connections.
5. It’s data-rich
Analytics help you understand your audience and improve the experience. The JEOPARDY!® learning game gathers data at the game, player, and question level in real time!
Picture yourself running an ILT Jeopardy! game and seeing that 85% of your audience just responded incorrectly to a clue whose content is critical to their job performance. You stop, and tell all fifty new hires that you’re going to take 5 minutes to review this topic. You’ve course-corrected right on the spot!
The Training Arcade analytics will help you identify knowledge gaps and performance improvement needs by showcasing the following metrics::
- Who is playing, and how often
- What games are played the most
- What day or time people are most likely to play
- Which games or questions are too easy (all perfect scores) or too difficult (low scores)
- Which games are not resonating with players or take too long to complete (unplayed games, long play times, or abandoned games)
Try that with Jeopardy! knock-off! Not available. . . game over! Offering players a fun way to complete training anytime, anywhere is what lifelong learning is all about. The Game Agency’s JEOPARDY!® learning game is an authentic, flexible, easy, and responsive way to test and expand players’ knowledge. It supports both asynchronous and instructor-led play, and it automatically generates the analytics you need to improve the experience over time. Want to give it a try? Join us for one of our JEOPARDY! Learning & Development Professional meet-up games, held every Friday at 1 pm ET.
Resources:
- Desktop vs mobile vs tablet market share worldwide. StatCounter Global Stats. Accessed September 23, 2022. https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet
- The Jeopardy! Learning effect. Jeopardy.com. Accessed September 22, 2022. https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/fan-jeffect/jeopardy-learning-effect
