Robo Sellers

Made by the people at Junior Achievement, Robo Sellers is a web-based game that teaches students some of the basics of running a profitable business. Students play as an astronaut starting their own robot-building company. You have enough savings to buy a ship, but you must do some grunt work first -- digging for and trading robot parts -- before you have enough to build your own workshop. Along the way, a Helper provides some basic instructions, but students may still need to do some trial and error to learn a basic strategy for how to win the game.

The game is played in two phases. In phase one, students must achieve two goals: sell 20 robot parts and earn 800 units of currency. This is done by traveling among the planets without running out of fuel, and either digging for robot parts or buying them at the merchants, then selling those parts for the highest profit possible, usually on other planets. Digging costs money, and students must quickly find a promising dig spot to maximize their return. In addition to being able to buy and sell robot parts at merchants, students can buy fuel and game tips, although the latter may or may not be helpful. The merchant shows -- with green up arrows and red down arrows -- if students can sell robot parts for a profit or a loss, and each part is marked with which planet they are from.

In phase two, students must either earn or borrow (with interest) enough money to build a workshop in which they can build robots from the parts they get. Then they must meet two new goals, sell six complete robots, and have 1500 units in the bank. A complete robot requires head, body, arms, and legs, with each part coming from any of the planets. Students can have fun mixing and matching robot styles for resale; complete robots sell for more than would their individual parts.

The game is over when students complete phase two. They then get to see their game data and a printable certificate. The interface is aging a bit (and the resolution might be a bit low for some computers), but the game still has plenty of value for the right age group.

In Robo Sellers, students will get introduced to some business basics -- like balancing profit and expenses, investing in a company's future, and controlling assets efficiently. They'll need to strike a balance between saving money and investing money in acquiring more robot parts. Along the way, they learn the principles of demand and scarcity as they find that robot parts sell for more when they leave the planet they found the part on. Students also learn to be efficient with their travels, since traveling uses fuel, which costs money, so digging more than once on a planet is often a good strategy. By regularly checking their inventory, students can tell what planets might give them a good price for their robot parts.

The drawbacks to the game are at the beginning and at the end. There's not a great onboarding process. The Helper's tips do give some context, but there's still too much thrown at the player too quickly, and it takes some trial and error just to understand the buttons, menus, and basic mechanics. It would benefit from a slower rollout of these things and what players do in the game. At the end, once students work out how to make money regularly, play can get tedious. While this drives home the learning, it might bore students.