Rory’s Story Cubes – what a great game! I discovered Story Cubes the other day at Story Planet, an ingenious space-themed hybrid of coffee shop, creativity hub, writing centre, and boutique store for all things related to the story on Bloor Street in Toronto. Books and games are available for sale.

Story Cubes is the invention of Rory O’Connor of Ireland, a trainer in creativity and creative problem solving. The game comes in three versions – the original game, a voyages version, and an action version. Each game has nine large cubes with pictures on all six sides of each cube.

The cubes are an endless source of inspiration. They are rolled to generate nine random face-up images. The players then invent a story that starts with “Once upon time…” and moves on to include something about all nine images on the dice.

Full instructions show how use the game to solve problems, break up writer’s block, enhance imagination and heighten the ability to find unifying themes among the diverse images. The game can be used to arrive at answers or decisions in an indirect and ingenious way.

I can see teachers using the game in their classrooms as a literacy tool to stimulate minds of all ages.