Why It Matters
Technology shapes every part of our lives, yet most people feel shut out of understanding it. These are smart, capable people who are experts in their own fields. The challenge is not intelligence. The tools for learning tech have simply never been built for anyone outside of tech.
The gap between people who work in tech and everyone else keeps growing, with real consequences in the workplace, at home, and in the broader world. The mission is to close that gap through games that develop the critical thinking skills needed to engage with technology confidently, without needing to be a technologist. You do not need to know how it is built. You need to understand it well enough to judge its capabilities, limitations, and risks, push back meaningfully on technical experts, and drive toward the best solution to the real problem at hand rather than nodding along and hoping for the best.
Michael Novack
Creator & Game DesignerI spent years working in and around technology and watched something that genuinely bothered me. Smart, capable people who were experts in their own fields would shut down the moment a conversation turned to cybersecurity or technology. Not because they lacked the ability to understand it, but because they had been made to feel it was too complex, too technical, and not for them.
What made it harder to watch was that I did not believe the level of understanding they actually needed was anywhere near as deep as they feared. They did not need to configure a firewall or write a line of code. They needed enough context to ask good questions, spot risks, and make confident decisions. That bar is far more reachable than most people think.
That frustration led to Byte Club, my first game, built around cybersecurity. When I ran workshops, the most engaged people in the room were not the security professionals. They were the accountants, the operations managers, the customer support teams who had never touched a security tool in their lives. The game gave them a way in, and it changed how they showed up in every conversation after that.
That experience became the foundation for Tech Board Games: a growing library of games designed to close the gap between people who build technology and everyone who depends on it.
Connect on LinkedInSlides Are Not Enough. Labs Are Not Realistic. There Is a Better Way.
Slide decks explain what things are without letting you feel how they work. Labs require setup and prior knowledge most people do not have. A game lets anyone play the scenario, make real decisions, and build genuine understanding with no prior tech knowledge required.
Every game teaches actual frameworks professionals use every day. The goal is not memorizing terms. It is building the mental model needed to think critically about technology and make informed decisions.
A game puts experts and non-experts on the same footing, creating a shared experience that builds real bonds around a topic that can otherwise divide a room. That shared table becomes the foundation for an ongoing community where technical and non-technical people learn from each other, speak a common language, and stop talking past one another.
Fun is not a nice-to-have. It is the required motivator. Without it, people go through the motions and walk away with checkbox thinking. Fun is what drives people to lean in and replay until they truly get it. The bar is simple: if a game is not enjoyable enough that you would play it even if you had no interest in the topic, it does not ship.
From the Boardroom to the Living Room
These games are used in corporate training sessions to bring non-technical staff up to speed, in university classrooms to make abstract concepts concrete, and at home by curious people who just want to understand the technology running their world.
If you have ever felt intimidated by tech jargon, frustrated by dry documentation, or simply curious about how the digital world works, these games were made for you.