All checklists from the course, in order

Six checklists: the five-minute round to do before anything else, then one for each step. They print on plain white paper, two pages or so, with the headers and links stripped out.

How to use these

These are not a test and there is nothing to send back. They exist because the five steps each ask you to write a handful of things down, and a sheet of paper beside the laptop is more use than scrolling back through a step to remember what the fourth question was.

The order is the order of the course. The round at the top takes five minutes and is worth doing before you read anything at all, because its four answers — who is playing, which device, how much, whose account — decide most of what the later steps ask you. Everything after that follows the step it belongs to.

Work on one checklist at a sitting rather than trying to clear the page. A realistic pace is one step per evening, which puts the whole course over a week with no night longer than twenty minutes. The only checklist that needs a particular moment is Step 4's, which is best done when the household is unhurried, because it involves creating an account and testing it.

Tick them on paper. This page deliberately does not remember anything: the boxes are drawn, not interactive, nothing is stored in your browser, and if you close the tab the page comes back exactly as it was. That is a design decision rather than an oversight — a site that saves your progress needs to keep something about you, and this one keeps nothing.

If you would rather not print, each checklist also sits at the foot of its own step page, where the explanation that produced it is directly above. The wording here is identical; only the explanation is missing.

A few items ask you to write something down rather than simply confirm it. Those are the ones to take seriously. A remembered figure becomes the price you were quoted, and a remembered cancellation method becomes a search through a help centre on the evening you want to stop paying.

Two items can be answered now and used twice: the cancellation method from Step 3, and the four lines recorded at the end of Step 4. Keep them with the household papers rather than in a message to yourself.

Morning round · before you start

The five-minute round

Write down who the game is for and how old they are.
Write down the one device it will be played on, by name.
Write down a monthly figure in Australian dollars you would be comfortable seeing for a year.
Decide which adult's email address and payment card the account will sit on.
Put those four answers somewhere you will still have them in a week.

Morning round · Step 1

Step 1 — What an online game account actually is

Which charging model is it: one-off purchase, free with purchases inside, subscription, or a combination? Write the sentence.
Does it need a live internet connection to play at all, or only to play with other people?
Does it have chat or messaging with people outside your household, and can that be limited?
Whose email address and whose payment method will the account sit on? Name the adult.
Where would you install it from — the official app store, or the vendor's address typed in by hand?

Morning round · Step 2

Step 2 — Working out what your household needs

Name the one device, and where in the house it lives.
Write its operating system and version, its free storage, and its rough age.
Compare those with the game's published minimum requirements, line by line, and note any line that fails.
Check that video plays steadily on that device in that room, and note wi-fi or cable.
Write your monthly figure and your single-month ceiling in Australian dollars.
Write the player's age, and whether a first download should wait for fixed broadband.

Morning round · Step 3

Step 3 — Reading the terms, the charges and the classification

Find the terms of service and the privacy notice from the foot of the vendor's own home page.
Search for “renew” and write down the interval and amount of any recurring charge.
Search for “cancel” and write the exact cancellation method, in the vendor's words.
Note whether there is in-game currency, and whether anything sold is randomised.
Search for “age” and note any minimum age or parental consent requirement.
Look the title up at the Australian Classification Board and copy the rating and consumer advice.
Write one sentence saying whether all of the above fits the two figures from Step 2.

Morning round · Step 4

Step 4 — Setting up the account and checking it works

Set the device's built-in parental controls before installing anything.
Install only from the official store or from the vendor's address typed in by hand.
Create the account on an adult's working email address.
Use a long password used nowhere else, and record where it is kept.
Turn on multi-factor authentication if offered, on an adult's phone, and save any recovery codes.
Decide how it is paid for, and whether a card is stored at all.
Review the chat and social settings inside the game and set them deliberately.
Run the eight confirmations in the test, and write down the four lines: email, where the password lives, how to cancel, which phone holds the codes.

Morning round · Step 5

Step 5 — Living with it: updates, spending and time

Note what was charged this month in Australian dollars, from the vendor's or the store's purchase history.
Note whether it is still being played, and how often.
Compare both against the two figures from Step 2 and write down whether they still hold.
Once a quarter, check free storage, automatic updates, and that the second factor still reaches a phone in use.
To stop: cancel by the recorded method, keep the written confirmation, and note the date access ends.
A month after cancelling, check the statement once to confirm nothing further was charged.

None of these checklists requires you to buy anything, and none of them has a pass mark. A household that works through all six and decides against the whole idea has used them correctly.