Gimkit is a live learning game where students answer quiz questions on their own devices to earn virtual currency, then spend that currency on upgrades and power-ups while continuing to play. A teacher hosts the session, students join with a code, and the platform cycles through questions repeatedly so students get multiple chances to master the material. Here’s how each piece fits together.
How Teachers Set Up a Game
Everything starts with a “Kit,” which is Gimkit’s term for a question set. Teachers can create a Kit from scratch by typing in questions and answers, import questions from a CSV file, or copy and paste flashcard sets exported from third-party study sites. Gimkit also has a Question Bank teachers can pull from. Once a Kit is ready, the teacher clicks “Play Live” from their dashboard.
From there, the teacher picks a game mode (more on those below), then lands on a settings screen where they can choose how the game ends, whether students can join late, and whether to turn on a nickname generator that assigns random names instead of letting students pick their own. After clicking Continue, Gimkit opens a lobby and generates a unique game code.
Students join by visiting gimkit.com/join and typing in the code, scanning a QR code the teacher can display on screen, or clicking a direct link the teacher shares. No student accounts are required to join a live game.
The Core Game Loop
Once the game starts, every student works at their own pace on their own screen. A question appears, the student selects an answer, and a correct response earns in-game cash. An incorrect answer costs money, so guessing carries risk. The platform keeps serving questions from the Kit in a rotating cycle, which means students see the same material multiple times throughout a session. That repetition is intentional: it’s designed to reinforce recall rather than just test it once.
Between questions, students can visit a shop to spend their earnings on upgrades and power-ups. Upgrades might increase the amount of money earned per correct answer or reduce the penalty for wrong answers. With what Gimkit describes as millions of possible combinations, students can tailor their strategy. Some might save up for expensive power-ups, while others reinvest constantly in smaller boosts. This layer of decision-making is what separates Gimkit from a standard quiz tool and keeps students engaged beyond just answering questions.
Game Modes
Gimkit offers a variety of game modes that change the experience dramatically. Some are straightforward quiz races, while others drop students into 2D worlds where they control little characters called “Gims” and combine answering questions with exploration, teamwork, or competition.
2D World Modes
Several modes place students in top-down or side-scrolling environments. In One Way Out, the entire class works together on a spaceship overrun by evil plants. Students answer questions to gain energy, explore the ship, use gadgets to fight enemies, collect keys, and reach escape pods as a team. Don’t Look Down is a race up a vertical obstacle course with six summits, where answering questions fuels your climb and the goal is to reach the top before anyone else or before time expires.
Competition and Sports Modes
Blastball splits the class into two teams for a soccer-style game where players blast the ball instead of kicking it. Answering questions earns blasts, and teamwork matters for scoring and defending. Snowbrawl is a fast-paced free-for-all on a small map where students throw snowballs at each other, with knockouts as the main objective.
Survival Modes
Snowy Survival starts by randomly cursing one player and giving them a snowball launcher. Everyone else runs. If you get knocked out, you become cursed too. The game ends when no one is left standing, so the goal is simply to survive as long as possible.
The variety matters because teachers can match the mode to their classroom goals. A collaborative mode like One Way Out works well for building teamwork, while a competitive mode like Don’t Look Down adds urgency that can boost engagement for review sessions.
Free vs. Gimkit Pro
Gimkit’s free tier (called Basic) lets teachers host games with unlimited students, but it limits which game modes are available. Gimkit rotates the free modes, typically offering about three at any given time. That means a mode you used last month might not be available this month on the free plan.
Gimkit Pro unlocks all game modes and is available in two pricing options: $14.99 per month billed monthly, or $59.88 per year (which works out to $4.99 per month). The annual plan is the better deal if you plan to use Gimkit regularly throughout a school year. Both plans are individual teacher subscriptions, not school-wide licenses.
What Students Actually Experience
From the student side, the experience feels more like a video game than a quiz. They open a browser, enter a code, and land in whatever mode the teacher selected. Questions pop up as part of the gameplay rather than on a sterile test screen. The currency system creates a feedback loop: answer correctly, earn money, buy upgrades that make the next round more rewarding. That progression keeps students cycling through the material voluntarily instead of just clicking through to finish.
Because everyone works at their own pace, faster students aren’t waiting around and slower students aren’t pressured by a class-wide timer on each question. The game-ending conditions (a time limit, a target score, or another goal the teacher sets) control when the session wraps up. Teachers can monitor progress from their host screen while the game runs, seeing which questions students struggle with and how the class is performing overall.