Games and learning

entanglion

Maintained by Entanglion

**2 PLAYERS AGES 14 & UP 45 MINUTES**

CC

View on GitHubCompare

Resource snapshot

What you can build or learn

Get a gentler introduction before diving into full SDKs.
See how different projects teach circuits, superposition, and measurement.
Identify resources that work well for onboarding or self-study.

License

CC

SPDX identifier detected from the repository metadata or license files.

Repository README

Preview from the project README.

Rendered as Markdown inside a scrollable preview. Long READMEs stay contained; expand or open on GitHub for the full document.

~675 words · about 3 min readOpen on GitHub

Entanglion

A game by IBM Research

2 PLAYERS | AGES 14 & UP | 45 MINUTES

Entanglion awaits your space navigation skills and strategic planning to explore a new galaxy and reconstruct an ancient quantum computer. Entanglion is a cooperative board game designed for two players. Learn about quantum computing as you work together with your teammate to navigate the three galaxies of the quantum universe, avoid detection by the defense mechanisms left behind by the ancients, and rebuild the quantum computer.

Think you’re up for the challenge?

Welcome to the quantum universe, Captain!

Congratulations, your captain has retired and left you in charge of his galactic shipping business! Now it's time to make some upgrades.

For years, you've been obsessed with rumors of an ancient quantum computing technology that could revolutionize galactic cargo transport. If the rumors were true, it would allow your ships to calculate hyperspace paths in mere seconds! There's only one problem: the ancients dismantled their quantum computer out of fears that it was too powerful, and they left the components scattered across planets in the heavily-guarded Entanglion galaxy.

If you want to rebuild this incredible technology, you'll have to navigate your ships through the Entanglion galaxy and out-maneuver the defenses the ancients left behind. The good news is that your old captain left you enough money to outfit your ships with the quantum-powered engines you'll need to enter Entanglion. The bad news is that without a quantum computer to guide them, these engines can be a little… unpredictable.

Want to hear more? Read the full Entanglion backstory, The Mysterious Fate of the Quantics.

Obtaining Entanglion

Entanglion is an open source project and you can make your own copy of the game by downloading and printing the assets. Alternatively, you can purchase a boxed copy of Entanglion at The Game Crafter.

🚀 Download the Entanglion Printing & Assembly guide

💰 Purchase Entanglion at The Game Crafter

Playing Entanglion

Please read through the rule book to understand how to play Entanglion. The online version of the rule book should be considered authoritative, and we will document any errata we find in the printed guide on that page.

Teaching Entanglion

If you are an educator who would like to use Entanglion as part of a learning curriculum, please reach out to us. We would love to hear about your plans for Entanglion and we may be able to support your efforts.

Expanding Entanglion

Entanglion is an open-source project developed by IBM Research to teach players about quantum computing. We welcome community contributions to modify and extend gameplay. If you would like to develop an expansion to Entanglion, please check out our expansion guide.

Citing Entanglion

If you wish to cite Entanglion in academic work, please use the following citation.

Justin D. Weisz, Maryam Ashoori, and Zahra Ashktorab. 2018. Entanglion: A Board Game for Teaching the Principles of Quantum Computing. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 523-534. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242696

@inproceedings{Weisz:2018:EBG:3242671.3242696,
 author = {Weisz, Justin D. and Ashoori, Maryam and Ashktorab, Zahra},
 title = {Entanglion: A Board Game for Teaching the Principles of Quantum Computing},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play},
 series = {CHI PLAY '18},
 year = {2018},
 isbn = {978-1-4503-5624-4},
 location = {Melbourne, VIC, Australia},
 pages = {523--534},
 numpages = {12},
 url = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3242671.3242696},
 doi = {10.1145/3242671.3242696},
 acmid = {3242696},
 publisher = {ACM},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 keywords = {board game, game-based learning, pedagogical tools, quantum computing education},
}