GeoChallenge Risk:  10 To 60 Players

What You Should Know Before You Play

The object of the game is for your students to be on the team that uses what it knows (or learns) of U.S. geography to win by guessing the states of the GeoPlunge cards its opponents have.  Your students will get clues about their opponents’ cards before they have to guess. Which clues are given will depend on what GeoChallenge cards are picked.  Some GeoChallenge cards will indicate exactly what clue to give, and some give either the team guessing, or the team giving the clue, some choice as to what the clue will be.  

The teacher should divide the students into teams.  There can be as few as 2 teams or as many as 5 teams, depending upon what the teacher believes will work best for the class.

Each team wants to get as many GeoPlunge cards as they can.  The first team to have 10 GeoPlunge cards wins.  Also, a team wins if every other team is eliminated from the game. A team is eliminated when it has no GeoPlunge cards left.  In the alternative, you can play for a certain period of time (such as the length of a class period).  If you do that, whichever team has the most GeoPlunge cards at the end of that time period wins.

Use the GeoPlunge and GeoChallenge cards.   Put any GeoPlunge cards that are discarded to the side, and shuffle the remainder of the deck after all of the GeoPlunge cards are used.  Put the GeoChallenge cards to the side after they are used, and shuffle that deck after they are all used.

How to Play

To start the game, deal each team 2 GeoPlunge cards.

Determining Whose Turn it is to Give Clues and Whose Turn it is to Guess

o       The teacher chooses which team will give a clue about 1 of its cards first.

o       Throughout the game, if your team is giving a clue about one of its cards, only the team sitting to your left gets a chance to guess the state of that card.  (If the team sitting to your left has been eliminated, then the team to its left is the team that tries to guess the state of your card.)

o       Throughout the game, after a team whose turn to guess ends, that team is then the next team to give clues about 1 of its cards.   This process continues throughout the game until the game ends.

What to Do When it’s Your Team’s Turn to Guess

§         Each time it’s your team’s turn to guess, you will be guessing at only one of your opponent’s cards. 

§         Before you guess, your team picks the top card in the GeoChallenge card deck and reads it out loud.  Based on what that GeoChallenge card says, your opponent gives you a clue about one of its cards.  Then make your guess.  (If you can’t agree on who on your team should make the guess, the teacher or your team captain will decide).

§         If your team guesses incorrectly on its first guess during its turn, your team must then decide whether it wants to take a second guess at the same card during its turn. It’s not an easy decision to make.  It’s a risk.  You lose a card from your team’s hand if you guess wrong on the second guess during your turn.

§         If you do decide to take a second guess, your team then picks the next GeoChallenge card in the deck and gets another clue based on what that GeoChallenge card says.  Your team then makes its second guess.

§         If your team decides to make a second guess during its turn and guesses wrong on that guess, your team must discard a card from its hand (and your team gets to choose which card to discard). 

§         If your team guesses correctly on either guess, it gets dealt the next card in the GeoPlunge deck, and adds that card to its hand.   

What to Do When it’s Your Team’s Turn to Give a Clue

¨      Each time it’s your team’s turn to give clues, you will give clues for only one of your cards, and for the first clue during your turn you get to decide which card to give the clue about.

¨      If your opponent guesses incorrectly on its first guess during its turn, and it decides to take a second guess on that same turn, you must give another clue about that same card you just gave that clue about.

¨      The clues your team will give will depend upon the GeoChallenge cards chosen by your opponent.

¨      If your opponent guesses your card correctly during its turn, you must discard that card that was correctly guessed.

¨      If your opponent takes two guesses, and guesses wrong both times, your team gets dealt the next card in the GeoPlunge deck, and adds that card to its hand.