Team Management

Categories and Showdown support teams with tracked scores. The other six formats do not — they’re played as a whole room or individually.

Which Formats Have Teams

Format	Teams
Categories	Yes
Showdown	Yes
Millionaire	No
Dealmaker	No
Pollster	No
Apex	No
Word Search	No
Revealer	No

For the six without team support, you can still run team competition — just keep score yourself on a whiteboard. The game won’t track it.

Setting Up Teams

Teams are configured in the game’s editor for Categories and Showdown. Add a team for each group, name them, and save.

Names matter more than you’d expect. “Team 1” and “Team 2” are forgettable; names the students pick create investment and make scoring announcements land.

Scoring During Play

Scores update from your control screen as you award points. The display shows current standings so the room can see where things stand.

You control scoring entirely — nothing is awarded automatically. If a team gives a partially correct answer and you want to award half, you can.

How Many Teams

Three to five works best in most rooms. Fewer than three and it’s not really a competition. More than five and each team waits too long between turns, which is where attention goes.

For a large class, bigger teams are better than more teams. Eight groups of four have more downtime than four groups of eight.

Forming Teams

Pre-assign for balance if you know the group. Splitting up the three strongest students keeps the game competitive, and a runaway leader kills engagement faster than anything else.

Let students self-select if you don’t know them and want energy. Faster, and the social cost of a lopsided outcome is lower.

Use existing groupings — table groups, cohorts, sections — when they exist. Zero setup time.

Keeping It Competitive

A game that’s decided by the third question stops being a game.

• Keep high-value questions in play until late
• Consider awarding partial credit generously if one team is running away
• In Categories, letting the trailing team choose the next square is a simple balancing lever

The point is engagement with the material, not an accurate ranking of students.

Teams Persist with the Game

Teams are part of the game, not the session. If you run the same game with a different class, you’ll want to edit the team names first.

Running Team Games Without Team Support

For the six formats without teams, the pattern that works: split the room, run the game normally, and track points on a whiteboard. Rotate which team answers so it doesn’t become whoever shouts first.

The game gives you the content and the display; you supply the scorekeeping.

Next Steps

• Categories and Showdown (in their own channels) — the two formats with team support
• Student Participation — how students engage across formats