Multiple choice tests have been a classroom assessment staple for decades. I remember many years of listening to teachers drone on about filling in the circle completely and making my mark heavy and dark.

But what exactly do multiple choice assessments test? Process of elimination? Best guess strategies? Certainly not actual real world knowledge, right?

This is exactly what the U.S. plans to overhaul within the next few years. Secretary Arne Duncan announced on Thursday that 44 states will share $330 million to work with university professors and testing experts to design a new series of assessments by the 2014-15 school year.

Instead of testing students’ abilities to find trick answers or eliminate wrong ones, these new tests will require students to design experiments, manipulate parameters, and collect and analyze data. Sounds a little bit more like the real world, eh?

Not only that, the new tests will be computerized, so teachers will receive instant feedback on student progress and misunderstandings and will be able to use that information to better tailor lesson plans. At least, that’s the hope.

So where do games come into all of this? Essentially, if the new tests are well designed, they should resemble a series of games. If you think about it, each game you play is essentially a test. You build your skills through conquering obstacles, then use those skills to reach an objective. Similarly, students will “level up” in class, then use the assessments to manipulate virtual variables, testing their skills in order to achieve a goal.

For young people today, games are fun, and school is not. Thus, the more we can inject a gaming environment into the educational system, the better our chances are of tapping into the potential of the next generation.

When recalling the fond memories of grade school, who doesn’t immediately remember hours of fun with Math Blaster and Oregon Trail? As technology improves, so too should the technological opportunities available to our students. After all, if life is a game, shouldn’t school be the ultimate adventure?

Most people who know me well are privy to my love of math and logic puzzles. I do sudoku puzzles in my spare time and take huge books of logic puzzles with me on long flights. So when it was time to design a board game, what did I do? You guessed it – a math game.

Math was by far my favorite subject to teach during my years in the classroom. Math is built on a framework of simple rules that anyone can grasp. Throw in a little practice, and you’ll be a math whiz in no time. I had students who started the year barely able to multiply 2×2. By the end, most were able to recite the times tables through 9 and complete fairly complicated long division problems.

Now, one thing you should know is that I didn’t set out to create an educational board game. Sure, I came to VFS to study game design in an effort to eventually create educational games, but I didn’t feel the need to combine gaming and education right away. However, it caught up with me anyway.

I started out with an idea involving dice. You roll the dice, then mark a multiple of that number on a grid in an effort to get five numbers in a row. That got boring pretty fast.

Next, I went a completely different route. I tried to come up with a spider web game in which players build webs and then set traps for each other while trying to capture prey. That one was a little too complicated to get just right.

After being stuck for a few days, I had an aha moment: combine the two ideas by using numbers to build webs. The result was a game in which you create connections between numbers based on shared factors. Each link allowed you to move one space along a track around the board.

Not bad, but the movement and numbers seemed too separate for me, so I decided to combine the two. The result? LINK!

The objective of LINK is simple. You control 4 pawns that start near the center of a grid. You must get all of your pawns to orange safety zones around the board before your opponent does. But how do you move your pawns? That’s where the math comes in.

To move pawns, you must create links. In this game, a link is a connection between two numbers based on shared factors. For example, the numbers 42 and 49 could create a link because they share the factor of 7.

Each turn, you draw a number and place it on the board. The number could be of your color or your opponent’s color; you must play it regardless. Your pawns can’t move through links created by your opponent’s color, so you must be strategic about placement.

The number of links you create on a given turn determines your movement privileges. One link allows you to move vertically or horizontally, and two or more links allows you to move diagonally.

The game ends when one player has moved all his/her pawns to safety zones. Interested in playing? Joe’s currently working on a digital version, so hopefully it’ll be available soon!

With all the illicit acts available to players within the realm of Grand Theft Auto, one young man has found a way to use the game to perform good deeds.

If you have a second, this article is definitely worth reading: My Four-Year-Old Son Plays Grand Theft Auto