Story Cubes Game: How To Play + FREE Story Cube Template

Story Cubes are one of the most valuable story-telling tools for writers of all ages. Similar to writing prompts, they inspire writers to come up with cool story ideas. And since they are in the shape of dice, you never know what idea combination you’ll get when rolling them! In this post, we will show you how to make story cubes, along with free templates. And to top it off, we’ll even teach you how to play the story cube game, along with 8 fun activities to play!

Table of Contents
What is a Story Cube?
How to Make Story Cubes
Free Story Cubes Template
How to Play Story Cubes
Online Story Cube Game

 Looking for more fun writing games? Try out our would you rather game idea.

What is a story cube?

Story cubes are cubes similar to dice with various images on them. Their primary goal is to help writers to come up with story ideas. But they can be used in various ways to build creativity and story-telling skills. For example, in a group setting, they can be used to build communication and teamwork skills, as players tell stories collaboratively. 

Normally story cubes come in a set of at least 3 dices. One for characters, the second one for setting and the final one for action. However, users can use as many as they like, mix and matching them to come with unique story ideas.

Story Cubes can be brought from online or you can build your own cubes. In this post, we will show you how to create your own DIY story cubes. 

How To Make Story Cubes

Story cubes can be made from plastic, wood or even basic materials you have lying around the house. In this tutorial, we will show you how to make paper story cubes. Paper cubes are the easiest and most cost-effective way of creating DIY story cubes. It’s also a fun family activity for those “rainy days” indoors. 

Before we begin you will need the following materials:

• Paper cube template (ideally printed on card)
• Scissors
• Pen or black fine marker
• Colouring materials
• Glue

Here are simple instructions on how to make your own story cubes:

1. Print out at least 3 blank story cube templates on A4 paper. Feel free to print out more than 3 if needed. You can also draw your own cube template if you don’t have access to a printer. You might need to ask an adult to help you out here.
2. Draw in your images. You can draw any images you like. For example, you might draw different characters on one, settings on another and random objects on the final one. 
3. Colour in your drawings. This is optional, you can keep your drawings black and white if you want!
4. Cut out the 3 templates using scissors. Please ask as an adult to help here, especially if you’re not good at cutting out stuff!
5. Fold along the solid lines on the templates. This should create a nice cube shape!
6. Add glue to the shaded flaps on the templates. This can be tricky, so again get an adult to help if you’re struggling to glue the cube together.

Yes – You did it! You created your very own DIY story cubes creating some basic materials around the house. Now the fun can really begin. If you need more help, take a look at our video tutorial on how to create your own story cubes:

Story Cubes Template

Download our free cool story cube templates now! This story cube template pack includes not one or two, but NINE free story cube templates!  By downloading this pack, you’ll get various story cubes including character cubes, setting cubes and even random object cubes – That’s so much fun! 

This PDF story cubes pack should include the following story cube templates:

• Blank Story Cube template
• 2 Character cube templates
• A settings story cube
• 2 Random Objects cubes
• A magical elements cube
• Scary monsters cube
• And a Wacky transports cube 

How to Play Story Cubes: 8 Fun Story Cube Games

Using story cubes to inspire your next story or just for fun can be really exciting. When you first create your story cubes, you might just want to freestyle. Roll them around and see if you can come up with short story ideas using on the elements shown on the cubes. After a while, this might get a little repetitive, maybe even boring. If you do find yourself wondering, ‘how to use story cubes’, then here are 10 fun story cube activities you have to try out:

1. 1. Basic Storytelling: Using at least three cubes, throw each one. Now tell a short story using the three face-up sides of the cubes. 
   2. Advanced Story-telling: Challenge yourself to tell a story using all the sides of one story cube.
   3. Six-Word Stories: Write or tell a six-word story using one side of the cube. If you really want a challenge, try adding two story cube images into one, six-word story.
   4. Collaborative story-telling: This game is very similar to the Finish the Story game! In a group of at least 5 players, tell a story collaboratively. For this activity, each player rolls a random story cube. The first player starts the story off using the image faced up on their cube. Then the next player picks a story cube and rolls that out. They then continue the story from the previous player using the image on their dice. Carry on until the story is complete or until all players have had two to three goes each. 
   5. Build Friendships: Story cubes are great way to get to know each other. Working in pairs, each player rolls out the story cube. Whatever the story cube lands on, the player must either tell a personal story relating to that image or provide an interesting fact about the image. 
   6. Idea Generation: Roll out three story cubes. Whatever images are faced up, use all these to come up with at least 3 different story ideas. 
   7. Character Cubes: Roll out a character story cube. Now you must write a short description to describe this character.
   8. Role-playing activity: For this activity, you need two players. Each player has their own character cube. They both roll their cubes and whatever character is facing upwards, they will need to pretend to talk like their character to each other. This is great for developing dialogue, communication skills and as a script-writing activity. You might even be interested in creating your own paper finger puppets!

There are so many fun ways to use story cubes. And you don’t even have to use them for storytelling! Instead, you can use them for getting poetry ideas or ideas for comic strips, even for letter writing or poster creating! You have the freedom to use story cubes in any way you want!

Online Story Cube Game

Finally, if you don’t have the time to create your own story cubes, don’t worry! We recently released the Ideas Wizard App, which has a really cool built-in story cube app. You can generate thousands of ideas with a range of fun story cubes, as well as use many other generators offline on your mobile device:

The Ideas Wizard app can now be downloaded from the Google Play Store.

You might also be interested in our free online idea generator to provide you with a range of writing ideas! Our story idea generator is free to use and can help you come up with thousands of fun and wacky story ideas like this one:

To start using our online story cubes, all you need to do is sign-up and play!

That’s all for today’s fun writing activity! Join us next time for more inspiration and writing fun for kids!