A Pokemon-style 2D simulation where you manage a living classroom and surface student thinking in dialogue with LLM-driven students. Every mechanic is grounded in high-impact education research, so what you practice is what the evidence says matters.
WHAT YOU DO
Walk the room, read what's happening, and decide who needs you and when, while the period clock runs and interruptions keep coming.
Each student is a frozen persona who won't simply agree. You "solve" a moment by surfacing their reasoning, not by lecturing the answer.
Attention drifts when you're far away or facing the board. Circulating and scanning the room is itself a move (Kounin's withitness, made playable).
A period clock, a Composure meter, and interruptions (intercom, a knock, a late student) you must triage with the least-intrusive response.
Discussion uses a U-shape, lecture uses rows, group work uses clusters, because the research says the task should dictate the arrangement.
Every period ends in a coached debrief scored against named objectives, with gym-style badges for each competency you master.
Elicit, Extend, Revoice, Tell/Model, Praise, Redirect, Wait, each tagged and scored, with a wait-time ring that rewards a real pause.
SCREENS
SCENES = MISSIONS
A scene is one data-driven config: it sets the seating arrangement, the roster, and the objectives, so adding a lesson is a single file.
WHY IT'S DIFFERENT
Personas and mechanics are anchored to seminal, heavily-cited work, prioritized by impact. Two of the anchors are among the most-cited papers in all of education.
| In-game | Teaches | Anchor | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feedback meter | Process-focused feedback, not person-praise | Hattie & Timperley, The Power of Feedback (2007) | 11,900+ |
| Re-engaging Sam | Behavioral / emotional engagement | Fredricks, Blumenfeld & Paris, School Engagement (2004) | 11,600+ |
| Diagnosis (Insight) | Attend · interpret · decide | Jacobs, Lamb & Philipp, Professional Noticing (2010) | 1,300+ |
| Redirect ladder | Least-to-most-intrusive management | Simonsen et al., Evidence-based Classroom Management (2008) | 900+ |
| Wait-Time ring | 3–5s pause after a question | Rowe, Wait Time (1986) | canonical |
| Seating by task | Rows vs U-shape vs clusters | Wannarka & Ruhl (2008); Marx et al. (1999) | canonical |
Citation counts via OpenAlex. Canonical anchors are verified against Crossref/OpenAlex before any publication-facing use. Full mapping in the project's PERSONAS_EVIDENCE.md and GAME_CONCEPT.md.
THE CLASS
Every persona maps to a distinct high-leverage practice and the move that works.
PLAY
Arrow keys to move, Z to talk to a student, Esc for the mission hub. The in-browser build runs the full game with a built-in student model (no install, no sign-in).
A teacher-preparation mental-rehearsal tool and a research artifact. Concept stage.