Make My Jeopardy

How to make a Jeopardy game in Google Slides

Updated

Google Slides can do everything PowerPoint can here except one thing, and that one thing changes the build. Slides has no trigger animations, so you cannot click a box to reveal an answer on the same slide. The standard workaround is a second slide per clue, which turns a thirty-clue board into sixty slides. If you would rather not build it at all, a free template that opens in Slides with every link already made is just below. After it: the method, and the two ways to avoid the doubling.

Skip the build: open the template in Slides

A blank 6 × 5 Jeopardy template, free and with no account. It is a PowerPoint file, and Google Slides opens it with every link intact.

Download the template (.pptx)
  • Upload the file to Google Drive: New > File upload.
  • Right-click it in Drive and choose Open with > Google Slides.
  • Choose File > Save as Google Slides, so the copy you edit and share is a native Slides file rather than the uploaded .pptx.
  • Type over the placeholders — each clue slide reads "Type the $200 clue for category 1 here" and so on — then present and click through one column to check the links landed.

The template already uses the structure this guide arrives at: a separate answer slide behind each clue, reached by a Show answer button, and a Back to board button on every answer. Nothing in it depends on trigger animations, which is why it survives the trip from PowerPoint to Slides.

Diagram of how the template's slides are linked: a square on the board slide links to its clue slide, the clue slide's Show answer button links to the answer slide, and the answer slide's Back to board button returns to the board.
The same loop for every square: board, clue, answer, back to board.

Building the deck

  1. Set the theme dark before you build anything

    Slide > Change theme, or set the background to a deep blue on the master. Doing this first means every duplicated slide inherits it. Doing it after you have sixty slides means changing sixty slides.

  2. Build the board grid

    Insert > Table, 6 columns by 6 rows on one slide. Categories along the top, 200 through 1000 down each column. Centre everything vertically — Slides defaults to top-aligned table text, which looks wrong on a board where the numbers are the whole design.

  3. Make one clue slide and one answer slide

    The clue slide holds the clue and nothing else. The answer slide holds the same clue in smaller text at the top and the answer beneath it, so the room can still see what was asked. Get both right once, then duplicate the pair thirty times.

  4. Link each square to its clue slide

    Select the text in a square, press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac), then click "Slides in this presentation" and pick the slide. Slides lists them by number and thumbnail, so name your slides in the filmstrip first if you want this to be quick.

  5. Link every answer slide back to the board

    Put a small shape bottom-right on the answer slide layout, linked to slide 1. Editing the layout rather than the slides means one edit instead of thirty, and it lands in exactly the same place every time.

  6. Present in a tab, not in a window you will alt-tab out of

    Slides' present mode swallows the arrow keys, which is what you want — the board is navigated by clicking links, and an accidental arrow press jumps you to slide 2 with no way back that the room will not notice.

Avoiding sixty slides

Two workarounds are common, and both trade something.

  • Cover the answer with a shape the same colour as the background, and delete it live during the game. Keeps you at thirty slides, but you are presenting from edit view, so the room sees your filmstrip.
  • Skip the answer slide and just say the answer out loud. Perfectly fine for a fast-moving party game, worse for a classroom, where seeing the answer written is most of the learning.

What Slides gives you that PowerPoint does not

One link to share, and colleagues can copy your board with File > Make a copy rather than emailing a deck around. For a department that reuses the same review game across sections, that alone is worth the extra slides.

It also autosaves, which matters more than it sounds when the build is an hour of fiddly hyperlinking.

What it still cannot do

The same three things no slide deck can: there are no buzzers, so first-to-answer is decided by whoever is loudest; there is no scoring, so someone is keeping it on a whiteboard; and used squares are marked by hand, mid-game, in edit view.

If those are the parts you were dreading, they are the parts a purpose-built board maker removes. Make My Jeopardy gives every player a buzzer on their own phone through a five-letter code, decides the buzz order server-side, keeps the scores, and greys out a square when it has been played. A full 6 × 5 board with Final Jeopardy costs nothing and needs no account, and if your clues are already in a Google Sheet you can import the sheet rather than retyping it.

Common questions

Can students play a Google Slides Jeopardy game on their own devices?

They can open the deck, but they should not — anyone with the link can click ahead to the answers. Keep the deck on the presenter's screen and give students something else to answer with, whether that is hands, mini whiteboards or a buzzer they open on their phones.

How do you make a square disappear after it has been used in Google Slides?

You change its fill to the background colour, which requires edit view. There is no way to do it from present mode, which is why most hosts keep a printed board and cross squares off instead.

Is there a Google Slides Jeopardy template?

Yes. The free template on this page is a PowerPoint file that Google Slides opens directly: upload it to Drive, open it with Google Slides, and the square, answer and return links all still work. Whichever template you use, click through five or six squares and the return links before you commit — templates get copied and re-copied, and broken links propagate with them.

Boards to play

Ready-made, with every clue written. Copy one and change what you like.

Make one now

A 6 × 5 board with phone buzzers, live scoring and Final Jeopardy — free, no account. Or copy a ready-made board.

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