Educational Game Club Event

Discussion of Beats Empire

Game: Beats Empire (2019)
Date: Wednesday January 21, 2026
    Time (PST): 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
    Time (EST): 9:00 PM to 10:30 PM
Location: Online. Join with Google Meet

We'll be discussing Beats Empire (2019), a game about running a music studio: analyze trends and help artists reach the top of the charts. The game is designed to assess data analysis skills (rather than teach them) in middle schools, aligned with widely used US K-12 standards. It is a Serious Play 2019 Silver Medal Winner.

Thoughts on the game before the event? Share them on 💬 the forum.

Housekeeping

• Playing the game before the event is encouraged but not required. The event is dedicated to discussion.
• The event is open to everyone so feel free to invite others.
• Suggest an educational game or prototype for a future event.

Questions? Comments? Email EducationalGameClub@gmail.com.

About Beats Empire

The Beats Empire team published a free book documenting the game's creation: its design, its use in a middle school classroom, and their learnings: Playful Testing: Designing a Formative Assessment Game for Data Science (2022).

The game was created as a collaboration between:

• Filament Games
• Teachers College (Columbia University)
• UW–Madison
• Georgia Tech
• SRI
• Digital Promise

The game assesses middle school data analysis skills aligned with widely used US K-12 standards:

• Computer Science (CSTA K–12 Standards)
• Mathematics (Common Core State Standards)
• Science (Next Generation Science Standards)
• Social Studies (National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies)

About Educational Game Club

It’s like a book club but for educational games. Each month we pick one, play it, and then meet to discuss it.

Subscribe to Educational Game Club to get notified each time we schedule an event.