The first weeks of middle school are harder than anyone tells you.

It might. The situations are real on purpose: bullying, a fake profile, feeling like you don't belong. The game handles them honestly and never traps a kid in a bad outcome, but you know your students best, so play it yourself first. It's free.

Cost: nothing, ever. Data review: the game does collect student data and requires sign-in, so if your district vets student tools, this goes through that review.

It runs in a browser, with no download or install needed. If your school uses Chromebooks or another shared/managed device, check with our team ahead of your pilot session to confirm current requirements.

For a lot of kids, yes. New teachers, new schedules, a social order forming in real time. That's exactly why Tales from the Middle exists, a free game that lets kids live it once before it's real.

Three kids, three different situations. A group project that falls apart under peer pressure, a cafeteria where lunch becomes a daily test of belonging, and a fake profile made to look like you. Along the way, kids get practice with empathy, standing up for themselves, and reading a friendship that's turned one-sided.

Your kid steps into one of three characters right as the first weeks of middle school start: new schedules, the cafeteria, a group project, a fake profile made to look like them. They make the calls for the character in real time, and the game never names a "right" answer at the end.

A story about three kids navigating the first days of middle school: friend drama, the cafeteria, a group project, a fake profile. Your kid makes choices for the character. No violence, no gore; the hard stuff is social and emotional, handled honestly.

It's built specifically for students navigating the middle school transition, and it was commissioned by the Bezos Family Foundation and published through Games for Change. It's honest about hard moments but never gratuitous.

Nope. If your child's class is in the pilot, their teacher runs it. You're welcome to play it yourself, and it's free, but there's nothing you need to set up.

Signing in requires a parent or child email, but the game doesn't use it to identify individual students in its usage data. It does collect anonymized clickstream data across all students, so check with your child's school if they have a policy on that kind of data. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.