A family picking up their copy of the Gorilla Game at Apenheul
The nicely designed ‘Gorilla Game’ highlights all of the problems gorillas might face in the wild. The aim of the game is to lead four silverback gorillas and their groups safely through a day. The game has been used in Apenheul Primate Park and proved to be very successful.
Use the links below to download the files you need to create your own version of the game. How it all looks when finished can be seen on the PDF ‘Gorilla Game Sample Layout’ (with Dutch text).
The rules in English and German are available on page 2 of the Word documents below. Educators can take the JPEGs (front and back) and just fill in the text in the language that they want in a Powerpoint or Word document using the JPEG as background. (It’s a technique that would turn a professional designer’s hair grey, but it works very well, and everybody can do it, regardless of what software you have available.)
Gorilla Game played on a large scale board, with children taking the roles of gorillas, poacher and conservationist.
The back side is available in two versions and you can use whichever you prefer. At Apenheul they used version 1 for education purposes, filling in the panels with questions on five different topics. The Apenheul questions are also included in the Word documents (page 1 of each Word document). But of course every you can fill in whatever text you choose – you may find that version 2 of the back side is more flexible in this regard.
The game will work best if printed on slightly stiff card – but not so stiff that you can’t cut out and fold the die.
If you have questions about using the game, contact Constanze Melicharek at Apenheul Primate Park (c.melicharek[at]apenheul.nl).
