The resource "Toxic: the board game" won the March 2025 Insafe-INHOPE Training meeting resource competition. The winning Norwegian Safer Internet Centre was awarded a grant to adapt the resource for the benefit of the Insafe network.
Playing video games is the number one leisure activity for children and youth growing up today. The gaming arena can give them many positive experiences and have an impact on their future in various ways. The gaming arena is social and has changed a lot in the last decade. At the same time, the arena has been unsupervised and ignored by the adult world. As a result, there is a very bad culture for toxic behaviour online. Some claim it is just good fun and humour, but things have gone too far and this needs to be addressed. This learning resource is part of a number of SIC projects tackling this issue.
The board game is part of the learning resource CTRLZ Skole, inspiring young people to become more responsible players and make them better understand how their behaviour can affect other people. "CTRLZ" on a computer means “to undo”. Through this learning resource, students will learn about undesirable behaviour, so they avoid saying something they can regret. The board game is based on a classical “Shoots and Ladder” game, where in groups of 4 students, you roll a 6 sided dice, move your pawn to the appropriate field, and respond accordingly to colour. Some have no action, others have “read a card”, and some have “move to another part of board” as automatic action. The cards to be read are in three different categories.
“Reflection cards”, where the player reads out loud a case or situation, and then discuss possible solutions according to the case, all based on real scenarios. The second category are “toxic cards”. The player has to look at one of the other players and read out a statement. Example: “You’re ugly and stupid.” “You should never have been born.” – collected from real communication in video games. The reader can then decide if they want to give the player they said this to an advantage in the game or not, to make up for the bad thing they just did.
The feedback from testing was that the players felt this part was very uncomfortable, which is actually the main purpose of the game. Saying something toxic to someone’s face is much harder than via a screen. The third category are “Joker cards”, where random stuff happens, “move back to the start”, “move 5 spaces forward” – random and sometimes unfair things happen in life, as illustrated in the game.
It is important to have an adult/teacher present when the board game is played. The teacher might need to help some groups along, give tips to how they can discuss the reflection cards etc. It is also important to have a joint session after the groups have played, to sum up learnings and new thoughts on how we communicate through our screens.
Please note that some of the tasks might contain foul language.
Originally available in Norwegian, the resource is now avaialble in Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Spanish.
Congratulations once again to the Norwegian Safer Internet Centre for winning the Training meeting resource competition in March 2025!
Find more information about the work of the Norwegian Safer Internet Centre, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline, and youth participation services, or find similar information for other Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe.
The resource "Toxic: the board game" won the March 2025 Insafe-INHOPE Training meeting resource competition. The winning Norwegian Safer Internet Centre was awarded a grant to adapt the resource for the benefit of the Insafe network.
Playing video games is the number one leisure activity for children and youth growing up today. The gaming arena can give them many positive experiences and have an impact on their future in various ways. The gaming arena is social and has changed a lot in the last decade. At the same time, the arena has been unsupervised and ignored by the adult world. As a result, there is a very bad culture for toxic behaviour online. Some claim it is just good fun and humour, but things have gone too far and this needs to be addressed. This learning resource is part of a number of SIC projects tackling this issue.
The board game is part of the learning resource CTRLZ Skole, inspiring young people to become more responsible players and make them better understand how their behaviour can affect other people. "CTRLZ" on a computer means “to undo”. Through this learning resource, students will learn about undesirable behaviour, so they avoid saying something they can regret. The board game is based on a classical “Shoots and Ladder” game, where in groups of 4 students, you roll a 6 sided dice, move your pawn to the appropriate field, and respond accordingly to colour. Some have no action, others have “read a card”, and some have “move to another part of board” as automatic action. The cards to be read are in three different categories.
“Reflection cards”, where the player reads out loud a case or situation, and then discuss possible solutions according to the case, all based on real scenarios. The second category are “toxic cards”. The player has to look at one of the other players and read out a statement. Example: “You’re ugly and stupid.” “You should never have been born.” – collected from real communication in video games. The reader can then decide if they want to give the player they said this to an advantage in the game or not, to make up for the bad thing they just did.
The feedback from testing was that the players felt this part was very uncomfortable, which is actually the main purpose of the game. Saying something toxic to someone’s face is much harder than via a screen. The third category are “Joker cards”, where random stuff happens, “move back to the start”, “move 5 spaces forward” – random and sometimes unfair things happen in life, as illustrated in the game.
It is important to have an adult/teacher present when the board game is played. The teacher might need to help some groups along, give tips to how they can discuss the reflection cards etc. It is also important to have a joint session after the groups have played, to sum up learnings and new thoughts on how we communicate through our screens.
Please note that some of the tasks might contain foul language.
Originally available in Norwegian, the resource is now avaialble in Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Spanish.
Congratulations once again to the Norwegian Safer Internet Centre for winning the Training meeting resource competition in March 2025!
Find more information about the work of the Norwegian Safer Internet Centre, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline, and youth participation services, or find similar information for other Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe.
- mental health
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