Power Play

My son is learning powers and exponents at school in his math class. I wanted to find a game we could play together to practice it. Most of the games and practice activities that I found were some sort of version of the card game war... too much luck and not enough strategy for me. Other games were really just worksheets cut up into cards instead of a game with choices and strategy. I set myself a challenge to try to make something that I would find fun.  

The initial card design. A different shape for each element of the expression.

Some example expressions made from a set of 3 cards.

One board game that I admire is Canvas. In this game, players select transparent art cards and combine them together to make a painting. There are different scoring conditions that players try to acheive with specific aspects of their painting. I used this game mechanic as my jumping off point for a math game. I took exponential expressions and broke them into three parts: a base, a base modifier, and an exponent. I created a stack of cards for each of these parts. Then I looked at the expressions that could be created and made some scoring conditions as the goals to achieve in the game. I drafted up some rules and then play tested it with my son. He gave me some good feedback and we added some additional rules and modified some of the cards. We added a dice symbol to some of the cards to include a random element and some excitement. After a few more playtests, we added bonus awards at the end of the game. Now there were some additional points on the table that could influence the cards you might draft from the draw piles. 

Game setup. Three end of game bonus awards, five scoring cards and three draw piles.

Scoring a completed game.

When we finished a game and my son excitedly said, "lets play again!" I knew that we had a decent game. I put my rules into ChatGPT and asked it to create a name and a logo for it. It game me several suggestions and I chose "Power Play" which it said was "a clever nod to powers (exponents) and the competitive aspect of the game". After a few tweeks we now have a finished game. Here is a link to my Google Slides with cards and instructions.

Logo and name created by ChatGPT

Power Play Instructions

Setup

• Create three draw piles in the center of the playing area. One pile of “A” cards, one of “B” cards and one of “C” cards
• Shuffle the scoring cards and place 5 cards face-up in the center of the table.

On Your Turn

• Pick the top card from any one of the three draw piles (A, B or C). If the card you pick has a die symbol, immediately roll a die and place it on the card to show its value.
• If you have enough cards, try to make a set of A-B-C cards to create an exponential expression that satisfies one of the scoring conditions. If they do, they immediate claim that scoring card. If your set satisfies more than one scoring card, choose one to take.
• Once an expression has been scored, that set of cards can’t be used to make a new expression (but the set can earn a bonus award at the end of the game).

Game End

• When all scoring cards have been claimed (or the draw piles are empty), the game ends. 
• Award the three end of game bonus awards. Each player adds up the number of scoring cards and bonus awards they have. The player with the most wins!
• In the case of a tie, the player with the most bonus awards wins.

If you give this game a try, let me know what you think. I would appreciate feedback or suggestions for improvement.  I've only played this as a two player game but with enough cards, there is no reason that it couldn't be a 3 or 4 person game. This was designed for junior high but could easily be adapted for older students learning additional exponent rules such as rational exponents.