15+ Writing Games for High School Students

After playing over 3,000 board games with hundreds of people, I’ve seen firsthand how impactful games can be. Beyond strategy and competition, many games offer rich opportunities to build various writing skills: expanding your vocabulary, strengthening literacy, improving communication, and practicing the art of storytelling. 

Games can help high school students become more confident, skilled, and imaginative writers. Whether you're a teacher looking to energize your classroom or a teen or parent hoping to nurture creativity, this curated list highlights board games that do more than entertain (though they do that, too!). I’ve divided them by category and included an overview, plus tips on how to incorporate the game into the classroom if you’re a teacher!

1. Wordplay Games
2. Games that Build Communication Skills
3. Storytelling Games
4. Games that Inspire Creativity

Fostering a Love of Words

This category of games focuses on wordplay, adding to your vocabulary and developing connections between words via their spelling or semantics.

Bananagrams (Classic)

Letter Jam

Number of Players: 2-6
Time to Play: 45 minutes
Types: cooperative, cards, letters, decoding

Letter Jam is a cooperative game (e.g. players work together) for a small group. You can’t see your own word’s letters but can see other player’s letters. Players search other players’ letters to see what words they can spell out and give as a clue to other players, using a number to represent a letter from that player. At the end of the game, players then rearrange their collected letters to try to guess their existing hidden word. 

Classroom adaptation? Best in small groups and, because of the length, may be best for lunch or afterschool clubs.

Quiddler

Number of Players: 1-8 players
Time to Play: 35 minutes
Type of Play: competitive, cards, letters

Create as many words as you can using your letter cards in Quiddler! Each turn starts with a player either drawing a card from the deck or picking up the top discard. The goal is to use all of the cards in your hand (except for the one you will discard to finish your turn) to spell words. You’ll score the number of points on the cards you used to build words, but any cards you couldn’t use will be subtracted from your score. The goal is to obtain the highest number of points by combining the cards in your hand into words.

Classroom adaptation? Yes, you can add another deck or two and play simultaneously with more players! Similar to Scrabble, this game can help players put new vocabulary into practice and learn new words from each other (players can challenge a word and then use a dictionary to look it up). Challenge students to connect the vocabulary they explore in this game to their reading and/or writing assignments in your latest unit.

Wavelength

Number of Players: 2-12
Time to Play: 30-45 minutes
Type of Play: team-based competitive

In Wavelength, two teams compete to guess the location of a hidden “bullseye” on a spectrum. One player (the Psychic) sees the bullseye and a binary prompt (e.g., Fantasy–Sci-Fi, Hot–Cold, Sad Song–Happy Song) then gives a single clue that conceptually lands close to the bullseye along the spectrum. The team debates the clue’s meaning and rotates a dial to where they think the bullseye lies. Points are awarded based on accuracy. Wavelength challenges players to distill abstract ideas into a single word or phrase—a skill writers use constantly. Additionally, they’ll be thinking about how their audience might interpret the word, encouraging the perspective-taking required in all writing tasks!

Classroom adaptation? Because only one player from each team needs to adjust the dial on the board, students could play this game in even larger groups, which will up the challenge when it comes to communication and finding consensus. 

Putting the Pressure on Communication

These games focus on working together as a team with strict rules or limits on how you can communicate with one another. When time or information is limited, how will you work together to achieve your objective?

Codenames

Number of Players: 2-8 players
Time to Play: 15 minutes
Type of Play: team-based, competitive, deductive, semantic

In Codenames, the cards form a grid of words on the table. One team leader from each team has a “map” of where their secret agents are located (and where an assassin is hiding); however, each turn, they can only give one-word clues (along with a number that signifies how many words the clue relates to). The key is to give a clue that connects as many of your team’s words as possible, while avoiding words that are not your team’s. This game really challenges both the clue giver and the rest of the team to think creatively about how words could relate to one another. 

Classroom adaptation? If you have a camera to reflect the gameboard on the classroom screen, the clue givers could be by the gameboard, and two sides of the room could play as teams. Because this game is relatively short, you might use it as a warm-up or if you finish class early.

Decrypto 

Number of Players: 3-8 players
Time to Play: 15-45 minutes
Type of Play: deductive, team-based, competitive, word association

Each team tries to correctly interpret the coded messages presented to them by their teammates in Decrypto while cracking the codes that they intercept from the opposing team. Using word associations mapped to numbers, teams will try to guess the numbered code, and at the end, the actual words. This game requires a delicate balance of being vague enough that the opposing team doesn’t catch on, while close enough in meaning for your teammates to guess!

Classroom adaptation? Best in small groups up to 8, and time can vary, so best for after school clubs or at the end of the school year.

Captain Sonar

Number of Players: 2-8
Time to Play: 45-60 minutes
Type of Play: team-base, competitive, cooperative, deductive

Captain Sonar is like moving Battleship! Two teams of players will be operating their own submarine, trying to find and target the other team’s submarine. Each player has a specific role and mini-game that they play simultaneously, relying on their teammates to also complete their roles. You can also play turn-by-turn, but simultaneous play is where this game really challenges communication skills. 

Classroom adaptation? Best played at 8 players in a relatively quiet space, so may be better for a lunch or after school club rather than during class time. But if you truly want players to learn to work together as a unit, this is one of the best games out there to develop real-time communication, leadership, listening, and strategy skills!

Pandemic

Number of Players: 2-4
Time to Play: 45 minutes
Type of play: cooperative, strategy, board movement

In Pandemic, the world is overwhelmed with four different plague outbreaks. The players are trying to treat disease hotspots while researching cures before it’s too late. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities around the world, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. This game fosters a strong sense of teamwork by encouraging players to make decisions collectively and solve problems together. If  players take time to discuss strategies, exchange ideas, and support one another, they will develop a shared understanding of how to leverage their individual strengths, cards, and resources to best balance their goals of mitigating the spread while trying to cure the diseases.

Classroom adaptation? Best in small groups, and because of the length, may be best for lunch or after school clubs rather than the classroom.

Improving Storytelling

These are some of my favorite games for getting over writer’s block and jumpstarting creativity. These games offer structure for thinking through common story archetypes, and many force you to combine unlikely elements in new and surprising ways.

Dixit

Number of Players: 3-8
Time to Play: 30 minutes
Type of Play: storytelling, creativity, competitive (light/optional), guessing

In the award-winning game Dixit, players have a hand of abstract and whimsical art cards. One player, the storyteller, will say a word or short story inspired by their card. They will place it face down and the other players will also add a facedown card that fits the story. The cards are shuffled and then revealed, with players (excepting the storyteller) voting on which card is the actual inspiration for the story. It is a game about balancing abstraction and concrete details, and finding creative ways to make connections between visuals and words.

Classroom Adaptation? Best in small groups up to 8 so that students can see all cards to vote. If you do not care about keeping score, a single copy of the game can be used for the whole class (don’t use the scoring pieces and keep them in the box). If you’re playing with a single copy of the game there are also expansion packs that provide more cards that you can add to play. You could also adjust the requirements of the storytelling to meet certain criteria aligned with your curricula or instructional objectives (e.g. students must use vocabulary words, dialogue, first/second/third person, etc.).

Pitchstorm 

Number of Players: 3-12
Time to Play: 15-60 minutes
Type of Play: storytelling, improv, competitive, cards

Each round within Pitchstorm, one player acts as the executive, while everyone else plays as a writer trying to pitch them the next Hollywood Blockbuster. The executive can play (often ridiculous) cards that the writer then has to incorporate into their story. It is a game about structuring a story, then using improvisation to incorporate new elements into the story on the fly!

Classroom adaptation? Smaller groups are better for a quicker game (so hopefully each player has the chance to be the executive, though it’s not required), and with 500 cards in the game, you could easily have multiple games occurring simultaneously with only one copy of the game.

Call to Adventure

Number of Players: 1-4 players
Time to Play: 30-60 minutes
Type of Play: competitive, board game, strategy, dice rolling, set collection

In Call to Adventure, players create their hero and go on the hero’s journey by acquiring traits, facing challenges, and overcoming adversaries in a fantasy setting based on character-driven fantasy novels. Players have agency over which cards they choose to face, and whether they choose the straightforward “good” approach or an anti-hero/vigilante approach. They’ll roll rune dice based on their current stats to see if they overcome each challenge. At the end of the game, each player tells the story of their hero using the cards they’ve achieved throughout the game. 

Classroom adaptation? This is a longer, more in-depth strategy game that is best suited for an after school program or lunchtime club that can dedicate more time with a small group.

Once Upon a Time

Number of Players: 2-6
Time to Play: 30 minutes
Type of Play: card, competitive, storytelling, improv

One player is the Storyteller and creates a story using the ingredients on their cards in Once Upon a Time. They try to guide the plot towards their own ending. The other players try to use cards to interrupt the Storyteller and become the new Storyteller. The winner is the first player to play out all their cards and end with their “Happy Ever After” card. This game requires some thinking-on-your-feet and improvisation, which works best with a deep understanding of storytelling arcs and conventions.

Classroom adaptation? Best for small groups, especially during a fiction unit so students can use elements of storytelling and better understand them in action. Such elements include the narrative arc (inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement); pacing; the hero’s journey; characterization; dialogue, and more. After the game is done, a free writing exercise or class discussion that encourages students to identify which storytelling elements they used would help to illuminate these skills and connect the game to your curricula; then, encourage students to use those same elements in a flash fiction story or other creative work!

Rory’s Story Cubes (and variations)

Number of Players: 1-12
Time to Play: 20 minutes
Type of Play: dice, cooperative, storytelling, improvisation

One player rolls the nine dice from Rory's Story Cubes and tells a story that uses all nine elements as part of the narrative. Alternatively, you could take turns adding to the story - the player who wants to add that element to the story grabs the dice and picks up where the last player left off. There are  various ways to use the dice to create a writing prompt, break writer’s block, or play puzzle games. There are also a ton of variations in the story cubes available from different brands, some with different themes, some with words or symbols, and they could even be mixed and matched, with you asking students to pull and roll three random dice from a jar. Or, you and/or your students could even create your own if you’re crafty!

Classroom adaptation? Best for fiction units, or free writing and warm-ups. Ask one student to roll a few cubes to give everyone a starting place for a free write, or keep them handy if someone comes up to you with a case of writer’s block.

Bonus: Honorable Mentions for Inspiring Creativity

Looking for more games? Here are some additional options that may not have as clear of an educational tie-in, but that evoke creativity and interesting connections nonetheless, especially for writers.

Telestrations Party Pack

Number of Players: 4-12
Time to Play: 30
Type of Play: drawing, storytelling

Telestrations is a paper-and-pen version of the classic childhood “telephone game,” players will view a sentence/short story and draw it, or view a drawing and write a story describing it. Then, they’ll pass that along to the next player. It’s fun to see how much the story changes with each iteration, showcasing the challenges of translating the written word into visuals and vice versa. I also put this game in this category because you could possibly recreate it using your own materials (short notebooks and pens, then cards with starting prompts).

Hues & Cues

Number of Players: 3-10
Time to Play: 30 minutes
Type of Play: guessing, competitive, board, words

Using only one and two-word cues, players try to get others to guess a specific hue from the 480 colors on the Hues & Cues game board. The closer the guesses are to the target, the more points you earn. This game challenges players to think about the nuance of describing a particular color using objects that they hope everyone will see as the same color.

Pantone: The Game

Number of Players: 2-20
Time to Play: 10-20 minutes
Type of Play: competitive, cards, guessing, characters

In Pantone, one player chooses a character card from their hand, then designs a representation of that character using only color swatch cards. The other players subsequently take turns trying to guess who it is. If no one guesses correctly, the player will give out a hint each round until someone identifies the character. This game challenges you to use, not only the color of the swatch, but also the placement and shape of the swatch cards by covering and layering them together. It’s surprising how little you might need to understand what character the player is trying to convey.

Thank you for reading to the end of this big list of writing games for high school students. I hope you found some new games to play in your classroom or with your friends and/or family that will also inspire you to keep writing!