Future Bound Games
FutureBound Games is a suite of college knowledge games that help kids realize their college aspirations. Like a game, the college application process is a system with rules. Mastering a game takes practice, but, for most people, the college application process is a game we only get to play once. The FutureBound Games suite strives to create playful ways to understand the systems essential to accessing higher education. FutureBound Games provide a safe environment to learn and experiment with higher education strategies and choices before it really counts.
Created in partnership with the USC Pullias Center for Higher Education Policy and Analysis, the project includes card, facebook and mobile games. Our mission at FutureBound Games is to develop, operate, and evaluate a suite of fun, inspiring, and educational games that will increase the number of low-income youth preparing for, applying to, and finding success in the nation’s 4-year college programs. Our suite of games is a research-based and highly innovative effort to ensure postsecondary educational opportunities for low-income high-school students.
The first game in the suite is called Application Crunch, a 3-4 player card game that makes a game out of practicing the application process. Players take on the role of a high school student and college applicant who must juggle their time between academics, extracurricular activities, work, and service while competing for college applications and scholarships. To win, players must get into college, save enough money to pay for tuition and other expenses, and build up the kind of character who can succeed in their chosen school.
The second game in the suite is an online game, Mission Admission, which one incorporates online play into the application process. Level up your characters, build out your school with pride points, and get your students into the kind of colleges that will help them realize their career goals. Mission Admission is available here, for download.
The third game is for middle school students. Future Bound is an aspirational game to help them gain understanding of careers and make choices that will put them on a path toward achieving their goals. And the fourth game, Graduate Strike Force, is a game to help students understand financial strategy in their quest for higher education. (Unfortunately, Future Bound and Graduate Strike Force no longer run on modern 64-bit systems.)
