Topic Tiles is a proof-of-concept for a news and information game system. The tiles on the board represent different angles or perspectives of a topic or issue that is in the news. The goal of the game is to answer questions as you move across the board from start to finish to accumulate points. If you answer incorrectly, you lose points. Run out of points before you get to the finish tile and the game ends.
Topic Tiles was developed as part of the Playing the News project from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. The Playing the News project was awarded a grant in 2007 from the Knight News Challenge. The project is primarily a Flash game for the desktop but it was ported to the iPhone to explore the same concept on mobile. The intention is to explore bringing news concepts and information to consumers using game-like applications.