Training games come from an extraordinary place, but interestingly it is not always a business goal.

In my life, I've created many training board and city games, educational stand-ups and other edutainment tools. They had come as an output of three streams in my mind. One of them is The Fun River, the second one is the River of Education, and the third one is an Entrepreneurship Waterfall.

• The Fun River gives a constant flow of new ideas and ways to play.
• River of Education provides a current that pushes you to learn new thing, and
• The Entrepreneurship Waterfall encourages you to find funding for your projects.

All of them are equal, and I cannot say which one is a primer or more critical. You need all three to create a unique educational activity.

An excellent example of that rule is one of the first games that I've created.

My goal was straightforward: I wanted to introduce modern training games to my employer, the insurance company, and my colleagues – the training team. At the time, we were launching a brand new group insurance product. I was responsible for the training part of that launch. 

I knew that the biggest training challenge would be for the people to remember all of the insurance options available. And, on the other hand, I needed a gamified solution that would be simple, low-entry level and engaging, so that the trainers, who had no previous contact with training games would have fun to use it. After many trials, I decided to use Spot-It mechanics, but even simplified it with unified graphics (so people's attention wouldn't focus on colors, rather than on insurance subject matter) and fill it with icons representing different covered risks.

So:

• The Fun River was represented by a joyful, quick Spot-it like game.
• In the River of Education, there was a need to teach people about a variety of insurance coverings and make the product launch entertaining, so that people would remember it,
• The Entrepreneurship Waterfall – I found funding for my game in the product launch project.

When the product was introduced to the market, we started trainings and trained several people. My game reached 1000 copies. For a card/board game, it is a significant number. And now, even when I left that company, every time there is a new insurance product based on that risks – the training team uses the game to combine fun with the learning process.

I have to say - I'm proud :)