How Story Grids Work

A Story Grid is not one long story. It is nine strange little problems, waiting to be explored in any order.

Grown-ups: see how the Grid System works.

A whole adventure in nine parts

Nine stories.
One bigger picture.

Every Story Grid has nine story encounters. Each one asks you to notice, investigate, decide or try something out.

You do not need to complete them in order. Start with the one that calls to you, then choose another when you are ready.

The adventure, step by step

What happens in a Story Grid?

  1. 1

    Choose a story

    Pick a square. Perhaps there is a mysterious noise, a muddle in the warehouse, or a job that does not seem to make sense yet.

  2. 2

    Find a way through

    Follow the story, pay attention to the clues and help work out what might be useful next.

  3. 3

    Get a fragment

    When you finish, you get a small fragment for your grid. It is one piece of a picture you cannot see properly yet.

  4. 4

    Build the picture

    Keep exploring stories and adding fragments. Little by little, the bigger picture begins to appear.

  5. 5

    Discover what connects them

    At the end, the completed symbol helps you look back at all nine adventures and notice what they had in common.

Then comes the useful bit

The symbol is not the end.

It is a way to look back. Once the picture is complete, you can revisit the stories and see the useful ideas hiding inside them.

That means the adventure does not just give you an answer. It gives you something you can use next time you meet a real-world muddle.

Ready to try one?

Begin with Smudge’s Little Job

Choose from nine very odd warehouse problems, collect the fragments and uncover the bigger picture.

Start the adventure