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Free teaching tools for HKU tutors & teachers — and every educator

Can’t get students talking?Game on.

Fifteen classroom games that get a university tutorial talking. You bring the questions — the game brings the drama. Projector-ready, quick in Hong Kong and the mainland, and saved to every device you teach from.

See the fifteen games Play the flagship →

⚠️ Before you build real lessons here — a word of caution

Common Core Games is still in beta, and not everything works perfectly yet. We suggest trying a game out for 15–30 minutes first, before spending hours preparing full lesson content.

And please double-check saving on each device you teach from: sign in, save a test game on your laptop, and confirm it appears on your phone (and vice versa) before class. If a save doesn’t come through on the device you teach with, it could ruin your teaching day — a two-minute check now spares you that.

What not to put in: never enter student IDs or numbers, grades, marks, results, or anything else that could identify a student — not in a game, not in the feedback box, and not into any AI you use to write questions. First names or nicknames are plenty.

And what you upload may not be yours to give away. Readings, textbook chapters, past exam papers and colleagues’ slides usually belong to a publisher, the University or another author. Many free AI tools keep what you send them and may train on it. Read that tool’s terms, decide deliberately what is safe to share, and when in doubt upload your own notes or summary rather than the original file.

Not sure which one? Three taps.

1 · What are you doing in this tutorial?

2 · How much class time can you give it?

3 · How much prep time do you have?

All fifteen games

Show them by thinking level

Revised Bloom taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Students will be able to…

These are a menu, not a ladder: a level is not a grade of quality. Retrieval at Remember is among the best-evidenced things you can do in a classroom. Where any game actually lands depends on the questions you write.

Tap a level to bring those games to the front. Tap it again for all fifteen.

Round Table

Apply · Analyse · Evaluate

A challenge floats in the middle of the table; every student flips a card to reveal their secret stakeholder role. Then: roleplay, debate, decide.

Prep~10 min·runs 15–40 min in class

Sort Race

Understand · Apply

Students come up to the computer and drag items into the right categories against the clock — you set the categories and the correct answers.

Prep~25 min, or 10 with the AI prompt·runs 10–20 min in class

Rank & Reveal

Evaluate

Teams secretly rank the things you choose to weigh; the reveal merges them into the class’s overall ranking — and flags exactly where teams clash.

Prep~15 min, or 10 with the AI prompt·runs 10–25 min in class

Spinning Wheel

Participation

Provably fair “who speaks next” with drama — elimination, pairs, secret odds for quieter students, and a task wheel.

Prep~10 min·runs 5–10 min in class

The Big Board

Remember · Understand

The classic quiz-show board for reviewing readings — categories, point values, team scores, think music, and a PowerPoint export that plays anywhere.

Prep~45 min, or 15 with the AI prompt·runs 15–40 min in class

Hot Seat

Remember · Understand

One brave student climbs a ladder of questions to a million points — 50:50, ask the class, safe havens, and the whole room holding its breath.

Prep~40 min, or 15 with the AI prompt·runs 15–30 min in class

Escape Room

Understand · Apply

Lock the class in — hospital, lab, museum or tomb. Every code they crack opens a new room, and the clock never stops. Solve out loud, escape together.

Prep~35 min, or 15 with the AI prompt·runs 20–45 min in class

Charades

Remember · Understand

Flash a word on screen, the team acts it out, the guesser guesses — with a ticking clock and team scores that pop.

Prep~20 min, or 10 with the AI prompt·runs 10–25 min in class

Tug of War

Remember · Understand

Two teams, one rope. Answer well and pull; miss and the other side pulls. Loud, fast, and great for quick-fire questions.

Prep~15 min, or 10 with the AI prompt·runs 10–25 min in class

Star Chart

Motivation

A semester-long participation board — one click awards a star, a tie-aware podium celebrates the top three, totals stay tutor-only.

Prep~10 min·runs about 5 min in class

Exit Ticket Roulette

Metacognition

End class on a thoughtful note — the roulette settles on a reflection question and, if you like, picks who answers. Curated metacognition prompts, or write your own.

Prep~10 min, or 5 with the AI prompt·runs 5–15 min in class

The Auction

Evaluate

A live auction house — teams bid a points budget on lots whose true worth is hidden until the hammer falls. Judge value, spot the bargains, avoid the traps, build the richest estate.

Prep~30 min, or 10 with the AI prompt·runs 15–30 min in class

Courtroom

Analyse · Evaluate

Put a person, decision or idea on trial. Two sides, real exhibits, an OBJECTION! flash and a cinematic jury verdict with a falling gavel — for mock trials, ethics tribunals and structured debates.

Prep~35 min, or 15 with the AI prompt·runs 25–50 min in class

Story Path

Apply · Evaluate

A branching decision story — the class votes on what happens next and the tale forks, mood and all, to one of many endings. You build the scene tree; every playthrough is a different path.

Prep~50 min, or 20 with the AI prompt·runs 15–35 min in class

The Challenge Cup

Remember · Understand

The inter-team quiz tournament — fast starter questions any team can take, and a private bonus set for the team that takes them. No buzzers needed: hands up, you tap who was first.

Prep~50 min, or 15 with the AI prompt·runs 15–35 min in class

15games, all free

2–24students per group

32escape-room backdrops

0ads, trackers, or fees

Help make this better — it takes 30 seconds

⚡ ~30 seconds🛠️ We build what tutors ask for — several games here started as a teacher’s request⭐ Beta feedback gets priority: your wish goes to the top of the build list

A game idea, a bug, a wish — anything. Your note goes straight to the developer, and if your idea is buildable and broadly useful, we’ll build it — often within days.We’re in beta — please don’t include anything confidential.

Enjoying it? Give us a rating:

What do you like about it? — tap all that apply

What should we improve? — anything confusing, missing or broken

How many students have you run it with? *Launched it in every tutorial? That’s ~120 students for a standard CC course. Just scouting for now? Put 0.

Small print: if what you write is positive, we may quote it when telling others about Common Core Games. Your name is changed and your email is never shown — but your course may still be recognisable. Anything critical stays private: never published, never shown with your name, course or course code, and used only to fix and improve the games.