Superhero Battle Brawl

As part of the JYHS Library's recent Comic Con pupils spend an hour and a half creating their own superheros and then battling it out to win their hearts desire. It was a huge success so I thought I'd share how we made it happen.

Step 1 - Set the scene 
The year is 2046 the country has been ravaged by a mixture of alien invasion, nuclear attacks, blundered science experiments and radioactive leaks. This has lead to the emergence of a race of superheros and villans which the nation decided were too dangerous to be free. They have imprisoned them in the school - which is now a maximum security prison. Due to an electrical surge the doors of the cells have opened and all the prisoners are now free but only one can fight their way out and claim their hearts desire.

Step 2 - Character Creation
Hand each team paper and pens. Ask one team member to come up and pull two abilities and one weakness from the buckets of decision (or whatever receptacles you have to put the two piles of cut up bits of paper with weaknesses and abilities written on them). Then giving five minutes (or so) for each task get them to make up a name, backstory, mission (what is the heart's desire their character is fighting for?) and outfit.

Step 3 - Defense and Attack Moves
Based around Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock each team has two defense moves and two attack moves. After demonstrating how to perform each move get the teams to create names for these.

Step 4 - Battle Brawl
One person from each team comes forward and presents the character they've created. Then chooses a move and on the count of three performs move. Best of three wins.

This game was created by pupil David Forrester, school librarian Kateri Wilson-Whalley and Reader in Residence forWest Lothian Libraries Harry Giles. The event took place at The James Young High School.