Selby area public-school teacher Paul Vasey has designed an online game to put some fun and oomph into business learning.

He is marketing Fortune & Venture which, he says, combines the right amount of competitiveness and practical application to make learning easier and more interesting.

Paul, business studies teacher at Read School, Drax, near Selby, said: “The aim of the game is for the players to generate usable business data in a fun and interactive way, learning as they progress.”

The online game gives up to four players the opportunity to buy businesses, generate customers, deal with ever-changing business conditions and decide whether it is the best time to sell or keep hold of the business.

Players travel around the board on the throw of electronic dice and if they land on a business they can buy it. But there are also business hazards on the way and multiple-choice business theory questions.

Each players starts with £100,000 in the bank, in the form of a grant that must be paid back over the game, and the one with most left at the end of the game is the winner. The internet game has been designed to consolidate the teaching of the different facets of finance included in most business studies syllabuses.

Paul said: “I have even incorporated a bad-debt feature, to create awareness of the fact that some customers just don’t pay.”

For the first year, anyone can sign up at fortuneandventure.com and play for free.

Paul, who lives in Pocklington, is hoping when schools see the benefits of his game they will pay to play and make their lessons more fun and interactive. Schools will be charged a subscription after the first year’s free play.

He said: “Pupils within one school can play against each other or schools can play against other schools either in the same town or anywhere in the world.”

He also plans to seek sponsorship from businesses who want their name and logo on the board along with a relevant case study and questions written about their business “Around the board, we have such business sectors as car dealerships, supermarkets, phone companies, jewellery stores, coffee shops. Any business which wants to sponsor one of these sites can do so, either on the main board or even in a localised board, say one for York or Pocklington,” said Paul.

The game is designed to teach students from a variety of courses (GCSE, AS, A2 and more) and to be used in conjunction with many of the popular business studies curricula.

Behind the scenes is software developer Daniel Brown, who has created the website, and businessman Darren Wiseman, who is now about to begin marketing the game around the country.

Paul said: “There are 6,300 schools and colleges out there and approximately 250,000 GCSE students studying business at any one time. I am hoping to reach this potential market.”

Log into fortuneandventure.com to try the game for free.