BrainPOP Games are learning activities that build background knowledge on key concepts like body systems and food webs through engaging, interactive gameplay.

Key Features

• Guts and Bolts invites players to build their own cyborg to explore how organ systems interact.

• Food Fight involves players in a game of survival on the Serengeti to learn about food webs.

IN THIS ARTICLE

What You'll Need
Finding BrainPOP Games
Playing BrainPOP Games
     Guts and Bolts
     Food Fight
Assigning BrainPOP Games
Next Steps
Frequently Asked Questions
 

What You'll Need

• A subscription that includes BrainPOP (3-8+)
• A web browser on a desktop or tablet device with a screen size at least 414 pixels wide

Finding BrainPOP Games

Each BrainPOP Game is available as an activity on topics related to the concepts explored by the game.

1. To find topics that include BrainPOP Games, search for Guts and Bolts or Food Fight in the Search bar. (You can also for the keyword "Games" to find topics with games, as well as topics related to games in general.)
2. Choose a topic of interest — the game will appear in the related activities.

Teacher View:

Student View:

Playing BrainPOP Games

Guts and Bolts

In Guts and Bolts, the learner follows Moby's to-do list to build a new friend (a "Frankenstein-esque" cyborg version of Tim) using a combination of organic body parts and repurposed household objects. 

Core Gameplay

Guts and Bolts is a pipe-connection puzzle game. At each step, the player drags and connects organs together using pipes to direct fluid carrying oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients through the body, in increasingly complex arrangements.

1. Each level represents a step in Moby's checklist. At the start of each level, Moby's clipboard displays the objective for that step.
2. The player arranges the various organs required for that step and then connects the pipes to each organ in order to achieve the objective.
3. When the player is ready to test the connections, they choose the Start Fluids button and the fluids begin to move through the pipes.
4. When the connections aren't made correctly, fluid spews from the pipes and makes a mess. The player can choose Stop Fluids to avoid a mess before or after it happens, and the Clear Pipes button to clear the pipes or clean up the mess after it's made.

5. When the connections are made correctly so that nutrients and waste are delivered to the right places, the step is completed and marked with a green check! 
6. The player can choose the play button (the green arrow) to proceed to the next level.

7. Once the checklist is completed, Moby's cyborg friend comes to life!

As the player progresses through each level, they practice building individual body systems first, then combine them — respiratory, circulatory, and digestive — to discover how they interconnect.

Settings

• Back Arrow — Returns the player to the level selection screen.
• Audio Switch — Toggles the sound effects on or off.

Food Fight

In Food Fight, two learners choose animals in a diverse habitat — the Serengeti — and take turns building a food web to support their chosen animal's population growth.

Core Gameplay

Food Fight is a two-player game: the old-school kind where players huddle around one device and take turns using the mouse or trackpad. On each turn, players can add plants or animals to their shared food web, with the goal of growing a larger population for their chosen animal than the other player's.

1. At the Start screen, players choose their animals and then the length of the game they want to play. They can choose the game length by turns or by time: 28 turns, 14 turns, 10 minutes, or 5 minutes.
2. On each turn, players can add a species to their food web from the drawn "cards" available, choosing either a plant species or an animal species. 
3. Instead of playing a species, players can also choose to pass, or play a Wild Card — Wilds Cards introduce external natural events (like rain, drought, or poachers) that affect their food web's ecosystem.
4. To help the players make informed choices, they can hover over a card before playing it to learn more about its predators and prey

5. As they add animals and plants to their food web, each species is connected in the web and its population increases or decreases with the addition of species. Each species is ringed with red & green status bars indicating how threatened it is by predators, and how much available food or space it has to sustain it.

6. Playing a Wild Card can introduce unpredictability to the food web, changing its balance based on natural events.

7. Players accrue points as their chosen animal's population thrives. The game ends when all of the turns are completed or time runs out, depending on the game length the players chose at the start. In the game of survival, the winning species is the one that can thrive best in a complex ecosystem of predators and prey!

Settings

• Music On/Off — Toggles the music on or off
• SFX On/Off — Toggles the sound effects on or off
• Help — Displays the game rules and hints. Choosing the Next or Back arrows advances through the rules & hints. To leave the Help menu, players can choose Start a New Game, Restart Current Game, or Resume Playing.

Assigning BrainPOP Games

If your subscription includes individual teacher and student accounts, BrainPOP Games can be assigned by themselves or alongside other activities. Learn more about how to Create Assignments.

When BrainPOP Games are included in an assignment, completed games will appear in the teacher's assignment report with a check mark. (The student's scores in the game are not included.)

Without being assigned, BrainPOP Games cannot be submitted to the teacher by students as Independent Submissions.

Next Steps

If your subscription includes individual teacher & student accounts: 

• Try creating an assignment that includes Guts & Bolts or Food Fight alongside other activities for the topic you're teaching, or related topics.
• Engage your students in learning and practicing the computational thinking skills that go into designing games by introducing them to Creative Coding.

Regardless of what type of subscription you have:

• Keep your kids learning on topic while shifting their attention away from the screen with BrainPOP Printables.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to BrainPOP Games? Weren't they gone for a while?

BrainPOP Games were temporarily on hiatus — and some, like Sortify, still are — while we worked on making them compatible with "under-the-hood" improvements to our learning activities infrastructure. We know how beloved these games have been, and are so glad to have them back.

Where can I find GameUp partner games?

Although GameUp partner games are no longer available within BrainPOP, they're still around on our partners' platforms. Learn more here in our article on GameUp.