Category: Serious Game Ideas

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5 new Simulation Ideas

1. The “Burnout” Triage

  • Core Idea: You’re a moderator of a highly stressful online crisis community.
  • The Challenge: You have to categorize incoming DMs as crises, emotional dumping, or trolling.
  • The Goal: Help others while constantly maintaining your own “Battery Life” to avoid burnout.
  • Main Takeaway: A simulation of the heavy emotional labor involved in digital support work.

2. The “Side Hustle.”

  • Core Idea: You’re running an ethical “slow fashion” business in a “fast fashion” world.
  • The Challenge: You have to source your materials ethically, like using deadstock fabric, and deal with shipping delays.
  • The Goal: Survive social media “cancel culture” from delays and high prices.
  • Main Takeaway: It shows the difficulty of prioritizing ethics over profit in a global economy.

3. The “Guerrilla” Urbanist

  • Core Idea: You’re a secret community activist working on improving your neighborhood without permission.
  • The Challenge: “Illegally” install things like a DIY bike lane, seed bombs, and unauthorized benches.
  • The Goal: Improve the neighborhood by lowering the “neighborhood temperature” while avoiding the authorities.
  • Main Takeaway: A simulation of community-led activism outside of the slow, top-down government bureaucracy.

4. The “Ghosted” Remote Op

  • Core Idea: A two-player commentary on the state of remote work.
    • Player 1 (“New Hire”): Stuck in a broken, surreal VR corporate training experience with weird glitches.
    • Player 2 (“IT Support”): Has to fix the connection using an outdated, 10-year-old manual.
  • The Goal: Player 2 has to guide Player 1 out of the experience before they get “fired” (disconnected).
  • Main Takeaway: A commentary on the isolation and weird lack of human connection in corporate remote communication.

5. The “Rage-Bait” Architect

  • Core Idea: A game about you, the “Engagement Hacker,” making viral videos for a video creator agency.
  • The Mechanic: Cut your videos to be as “Rage-Bait” as possible to exploit the algorithm and go viral.
  • The Goal: Reach 1 Million followers.
  • The Twist: Your success fills the “Global Anxiety” bar, and you start to see the negative effects of your content in the in-game news.
  • Main Takeaway: A simulation of digital complicity and the cost of going viral.

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Game Ideas around Empathy

  1. Impairment: Each player either can’t 1 – see 2 – hear – 3 touch normally 4 – talk and you play a simple game (like Uno or something) and then reflect on the experience and switch “impairments” to feel what they other person goes through
  2. Similar to the above game but specifically finding empathy for people who have a hard time with too many stimuli (autism, adhd, etc) Each player adds or takes away a noise/distraction each turn as well as playing the game and can give or take “relief” from the chaos to understand the need for sensory rooms or quiet spaces
  3. A game that has to do with learning to be empathetic for language differences – I feel like especially in the U.S. people immediately form opinions about people based on their accent/language difference. Creating a game where people have to live in that reality and deal with those differences would be really intriguing – i have ideas like a card game but everyone has different sets of words with part English/part foreign language and they have to play with those differences
  4. Dealing with Grief – card game where players work through people dealing with any sort of sadness – the cards reveal scenarios for each player and each player must give correct responses and learn to interact with grieving people “correctly” and empathetically
  5. Interactive/Physical Game – being understanding towards elderly people is the message the game is meant imply – basically a relay game except players are assigned ages which inhibit how fast or slow they can walk/run/move to the goal and how they interact with other players
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Game Design 2

(2.12) Serious Games

Discussion: Train, Crosser & La Migra, Ludoztil, Oregon Trail, Last Resort

Train (Brenda Romero)

Train is impactful because it keeps its context hidden until the end. The mechanics are straightforward and focus on moving pieces efficiently, but the reveal reframes the entire experience. It demonstrates how games can involve players directly in systems rather than simply explaining them. The lesson is conveyed through participation instead of dialogue, and that discomfort becomes the central learning experience.

Crosser & La Migra

Both games simulate border crossing and the pressures of immigration. What stands out is how procedural rules express vulnerability. Randomness, restricted movement, and pursuit mechanics create tension and stress. Rather than explaining immigration systems abstractly, these games simulate constraint and risk, allowing players to feel instability and fear firsthand.

Ludoztil

Ludoztil critiques the manipulation embedded in gamification systems. By satirizing reward structures, it reveals how points and incentives shape behavior even when players are aware they are being influenced. This connects directly to Bogost’s argument that gamification often prioritizes shallow motivation over meaningful engagement.

Oregon Trail

Oregon Trail remains one of the earliest examples of serious gaming. It teaches through consequence, using disease, weather, and scarcity to illustrate the realities of westward expansion. The learning model relies heavily on repetition and feedback, reinforcing behaviorist learning principles through trial and error.

Last Resort

Last Resort addresses homelessness and economic instability. What makes it effective is the absence of easy solutions. It highlights systemic barriers rather than individual failure, showing how serious games can expose structural issues instead of reinforcing personal blame.

Overall Reflection

Across all of these examples, systems communicate meaning more effectively than lectures. Players learn by experiencing constraint, uncertainty, and moral tension.

Play Reflection: Crossing the Bridge and Observance

Crossing the Bridge

This game centers on ethical decision making. It does not reward efficiency or optimization. Instead, it forces players to confront the consequences of their choices. The discomfort created by those decisions becomes the learning moment. Reflection occurs after action rather than during gameplay optimization.

Observance

Observance relies on ambiguity and environmental interpretation. It encourages attentiveness and emotional awareness rather than traditional goal completion. Without clear objectives, the experience feels less like a challenge and more like an immersive reflection.

Combined Takeaway

Both games demonstrate that serious games prioritize reflection over reward systems. The emotional or intellectual impact often happens after the play session ends.

Prototype Concept: The Last Hunt

Core Concept

The Last Hunt is a survival-focused serious game inspired by Appalachian folklore. A small hunting party becomes stranded after signs of a Wendigo attack during winter. As resources diminish, the main threat becomes fear, mistrust, and the decisions players make to keep the group alive.

Player Role

The player acts as the group’s decision-maker, balancing survival needs with social stability.

Prototype Mechanics (Paper Version)

Players track four core resources:

  • Food
  • Warmth
  • Trust
  • Fear

Each round includes:

  1. Resource Phase — supplies decrease and environmental conditions worsen.
  2. Event Phase — cards introduce challenges such as storms, disappearances, or strange tracks.
  3. Decision Phase — players choose responses like rationing food, holding a campfire talk, hiding bad news, or honoring the dead.
  4. Consequence Phase — decisions create long-term effects on group trust and fear.

Deaths are significant and introduce ethical choices around corpse management, such as burial, abandonment, or using resources for survival. These choices affect morale and trust.

Learning Objectives

The game explores:

  • Group decision making under stress
  • Survival ethics and scarcity
  • Fear and social cohesion
  • How leadership choices shape group dynamics

The Wendigo serves as both a folkloric threat and a symbolic pressure that reflects the group’s psychological state.

The Last Shift
A simulation of emergency room triage focused on ethical resource allocation and time pressure.

Witness Reports
Players analyze conflicting cryptid sightings to explore misinformation, bias, and evidence evaluation.

Signal in the Pines
A narrative game in which players respond to rural distress signals and must decide how to act under uncertainty.

Cryptid Conservation Agency
Players manage environmental preservation efforts for endangered mythical creatures, balancing public perception and ecological sustainability.

Archive of the Unseen
Players curate fading folklore and decide which cultural stories are preserved or forgotten, exploring how history is shaped.

Each concept uses systems to examine themes such as ethics, media literacy, environmental stewardship, and cultural memory.

Reading Responses

Learning Games and Learning Theory

Oregon Trail aligns with behaviorism because players learn through reinforcement and repeated feedback loops of success and failure.

Minecraft Education Edition reflects constructivism since players build, experiment, and discover solutions through exploration.

Collaborative simulation games align with social constructivism because knowledge develops through communication and shared problem solving.

Among these, constructivist approaches feel the most effective because players actively construct understanding instead of responding to rewards.

Is Gamification Bullshit

Bogost argues that gamification reduces games to points, badges, and superficial incentives, stripping away depth and transforming engagement into manipulation.

I partially agree. Gamification can encourage short term behavior, but without meaningful systems it becomes shallow.

Examples outside class include fitness apps that track streaks, corporate training platforms that award badges, and productivity tools that gamify tasks. These systems often lose effectiveness once novelty fades because they lack intrinsic motivation.

What Is a Serious Game and Why It Is Not Chocolate Covered Broccoli

A serious game is designed primarily for learning, awareness, or reflection, using gameplay mechanics to communicate meaning.

Farber argues that serious games are not chocolate covered broccoli because the learning is embedded within the mechanics. Players do not pause the game for instruction. Instead, the interaction itself creates understanding. When designed well, the system becomes the lesson.

Final Reflection

This week reinforced that serious games rely on systems, constraints, and player agency to generate meaningful learning. The strongest examples do not preach. They simulate. My revised prototype, Cryptid Commune, applies this approach by using folklore aesthetics to explore leadership, belief, and social influence through interactive systems.

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Serious Game Ideas Week 4

  1. Mind Matters (Monopoly-Style Mental Health Game)
  • Goal: Stay mentally balanced, not rich
  • Win/Lose: Cooperative win if players avoid burnout; group loss if too many burn out
  • Money – Energy Points: Used for all actions
  • Properties – Life Areas: School, Work, Friends, Sleep, Hobbies
  • Railroads – Support Systems: Therapy, Family, Friends
  • Utilities – Coping Skills: Exercise, Mindfulness, Journaling
  • Houses/Hotels – Habits & Routines: Help energy, overbuilding causes burnout
  • Chance/Community Chest – Stressors & Support
  • Jail – Burnout: Pause, rest, or accept help to recover
  • Message: Balance matters, burnout is real, and asking for help is part of the game
  1. Panic Attack! (Exploding Kittens-Style Mental Health Card Game)
  • Type: Fast party card game (2-6 players, 10-15 min)
  • Goal: Avoid panic spirals and survive the deck
  • Panic Cards: Knock you out unless defused
  • Coping Cards: Breathing, Grounding, Text a Friend (cancel Panic)
  • Stress Cards: Force draws, skips, shuffles
  • Avoidance Cards: Skip, See the Future, Shuffle
  • Twist:
    • Coping cards are limited
    • Some Panic cards require help from another player
  • Win: Last player standing or cooperative survival
  • Message: Panic is sudden, coping takes effort, support matters
  1. Unhelpful Advice – (Based on Bad Thearapist but better bc that game is not good)
  • Type: Party card game | 3-8 players | 15-20 minutes
  • Goal: Win rounds by matching the worst advice to serious mental health prompts
  • Prompt Cards: Real struggles (anxiety, burnout, imposter syndrome, loneliness)
  • Advice Cards: Wildly unhelpful, tone-deaf, or cliché responses
  • Judge Role: One player picks the “most realistically awful” advice
  • Scoring: Judge awards a point to the winning advice
  • Twist:
    • Occasional Reality Check Cards pause the game to share what actual helpful support looks like
    • Optional debrief at the end of rounds
  • Tone: Dark humor with boundaries (no slurs, no glamorizing harm)
  • Message: Bad advice is common, listening matters, and mental health isn’t one-size-fits-all
  1. Dear Me – Therapy Edition (Journaling Mental Health Game)
  • Setting: Individual or group therapy, school counseling
  • Players: 1–6 or solo
  • Goal: Guided self-reflection and emotional regulation
  • Levels:
    • Grounding – identify emotions and body sensations
    • Reflection – explore patterns and self-talk
    • Growth – values, strengths, future goals
  • Journaling:
    • Timed writing (2-5 minutes per prompt)
    • Writing required, sharing optional
    • Skipping is allowed without explanation
  • Therapist Cards:
    • Pause (breathing/grounding)
    • Reframe (thought challenges)
    • Strengths (coping skills)
  • Win Condition: None
  • Message: Self-awareness, consent, and healing over performance
  1. Spoon Buffet (Sushi Go – Style Mental Health Game)
  • Type: Drafting/set-building card game | 2-5 players | 15-20 min
  • Goal: Manage your “spoons” (energy) each day and avoid burnout
  • Card Types:
    • Task Cards – Work, School, Chores (cost spoons)
    • Self-Care Cards – Sleep, Exercise, Mindfulness (restore spoons)
    • Support Cards – Friends, Therapy, Family (protect or boost spoons)
    • Stress Cards – Anxiety, Overcommitment, Unexpected Events (drain spoons unless countered)
  • Mechanics:
    • Draft one card per round, pass the rest (like Sushi Go!)
    • Plan to avoid running out of spoons
    • Some Stress cards require help from other players
  • Scoring / Win:
    • Points for ending with the most spoons preserved
    • Penalties for “spoon debt” (overexertion)
    • Optional cooperative mode: group wins by balancing total spoons
  • Message:
    • Mental health is finite; energy management matters
    • Self-care restores energy; support prevents burnout
    • Recognizing limits is key; overextending has consequences
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Mason Tosadori Week 4

Observance

  1. What made the experience fun or not?
    • The game was decently fun but there are a few tweaks I would change. The game is very chance based. I believe the americans are really strong and its super easy to catch the people on team MEX. The mex need to reveal themselves to find the churches, which easily gets them caught, and then they have 2 chances to find the green card, if they dont find it they have to send their people to actually stand on the A row and search space by space. If they miss they reveal their location and will easily get caught, so you hav to find it really early on.
  2. What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing?
    • The factor is to go and find the green card and save all your immigrants, or on the other hand stop all the immigrants from getting into america.
  3. Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game?
    • The game is trying to get players to look at and understand whats going on at the border. Aliens want to sneak into America to get a better life while Americans are trying to keep the Aliens out. It shows what both parties have to go through, sneaking in and also trying to keep these people out.
  4. What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
    • The games metaphor is symbolic of trying to get a better life while others try to keep them away from it. It resembles battle ship in game mechanics but the fact that your pieces directly interact with your opponents pieces is a different mechanic.
  5. How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for?
    • The game makes me feel empathy for the immigrants trying to get into the country, but I understand how people can also have empathy for the workers who are doing their job and trying to keep people from sneaking into the states instead of coming in legally.
  6. Is the game an activist game? If so what does the game play advocate for?
    • I think the game is an activist game advocating for immagrants trying to get into the US. It shows their struggles and how dangerous and difficult it is just to try and be more successful in life.
  7. Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku
    • Team MEX tries to sneak, the americans catch them, away from better life

LAST RESORT

  1. What made the experience fun or not?
    • The game was fun, its a mix of chess but theres a whole new aspect with the civilians and having multiple ways to win. It gives room for alot of strategy while also having a message about 2 sides of war and how it effects innocent people.
  2. What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing?
    • The motivation is to beat your opponent in battle while also keeping civilians safe in the crossfire. Its a 1v1 competitive game so that makes the competiton alot more direct compared to group played games.
  3. Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game?
    • The game is persuasive in the sense of giving the players a deeper perspective of war. It shows how it can effect civilians and how people can get caught in the cross fire. It also gives the perspective of how civilians arent just on the sidelines, but a direct strategy that each side has to take into account.
  4. What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
    • The games metaphor is symbolic, almost directly, of the perspective of innocent civilians in wars. The game mechanics focus on this by letting you kill and capture the civilians, giving the game a whole other loop off strategy and ways to win the game involvining civilians insetad of just killing your enemies pieces.
  5. How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for?
    • I like the gameplay alot, theres alot of strategy and different moves to make, and because there are multiple win conditions you never know what your opponents goal might be. It is empathetic towards people effected by war who arent directly involved. It shows troops moving around them and even taking thei lives, showing the effects war has on people other than troops.
  6. Is the game an activist game? If so what does the game play advocate for?
    • The game seems like an antiwar kind of game. It shows the taking of lives with troops, but also being able to set of smaller bombs and a nuke which can take out most of the board shows the losses and spoils of war.
  7. Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku
    • 2 sides of a war, civilians in the way, decide how you win

What learning games have you played? Which learning theory do they fit? Which worked best?
I have played games like Kahoot and Duolingo. Kahoot and Duolingo mostly use rewards like points and streaks, which fits behaviorism because you get rewarded for correct answers. The games are competitive and have leader boards. Kahoot worked for me because it shows the whole class if you got the answer wrong, making me work harder to not embarss myself.

Is gamification “bullshit”? What is Bogost’s argument? Do you agree? Where have you seen it?
Ian Bogost says gamification is “bullshit” because it just adds points and badges to boring tasks. He thinks this does not make something truly fun or meaningful. It only tries to push people to work harder without changing the task itself. I have seen gamification in fitness apps and store rewards programs. It can be motivating at first, but it usually does not last, so I mostly agree with him.

What is a serious game, and why aren’t they “chocolate-covered broccoli”?
A serious game is a game made to teach or explore real-world topics. It is not just a boring lesson covered up to look fun. Learning happens through playing and making choices. This makes the experience feel more real and engaging.

5 Ideas for a serious game.

1. Student money manager
You play as a student who has to budget money for rent, food, and bills. You learn how to save and avoid debt.

2. Save the earth
You run a city and make choices about pollution and clean energy. Your decisions affect the environment and the people.

3. Fake New
You read news stories and decide if they are true or false. The game teaches how to spot fake news.

4. Stop the Virus
You try to control a disease in a town. You choose rules to keep people safe while keeping businesses open.

5. Life Choices
You play as someone facing challenges like poverty or disability. Your choices show how hard daily life can be.

I choose the game Gamer Girl for the podcast.

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Week 4 Questions

Observance

What made the experience fun or not?

The experience was fun because if you are the immigrants, you don’t know where your opponents players are and its the mystery of where the green card and the churches are. The game gets a lot easier once you find the green card so you can escape. If you are the boarder patrol, you get to choose where the green card is and the churches. You also have the opportunity to block the immigrants and do search formats that will help sweep them from the board.

What is the motivating factor to get or keep players playing?

The motivating factor for the immigrants is to find the green card to escape. The motivating factor for the search patrol is to find where the immigrants are and wipe them off the board.
Is the game persuasive, and what is it trying to get you to do outside of the game?

Yes the game is persuasive because it is subtly trying to show you what the boarder is like in real life and is trying to influence your beliefs and social understandings.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?

It compares immigration to the game battleship. The mechanic that stands out is the search and hide characteristic of the game that reinforces the cat and mouse dynamic at the boarder.
How does the gameplay make you feel? Who does the game make you feel empathy for?

The gameplay can feel uncomfortable and strategic rather than playful. It often creates empathy for immigrants because they are positioned as vulnerable and constantly under threat of being “found.” Depending on the role you play, it can also make you reflect on the system itself rather than just one side.
Is the game an activist game? If so what does the game play advocate for?

Yes it can be considered an activist or persuasive game. It advocates for critical reflection on U.S. border politics and immigration enforcement by exposing how the system reduces complex human experiences into tactical operations.
Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku.

Observance is a board game modeled after Battleship that explores immigration and border patrol. One player hides as immigrants while the other searches as border enforcement, creating a tense strategy gameplay. Through simple mechanics, the game critiques how border systems treat human movement like a tactical game.

5 new ideas:

  1. Concept:
    A workplace simulation game where players navigate a corporate environment over 10 in-game years.

Gameplay:
Players choose a character (with gender identity affecting how systems respond to them) and make decisions about speaking up in meetings, negotiating salary, reporting harassment, or balancing family expectations. The same choices produce different outcomes depending on the character’s gender.

Serious Purpose:
The game demonstrates wage gaps, bias in performance reviews, emotional labor expectations, and the “double bind” women often face (too assertive vs. not assertive enough).

Core Message:
Sexism is systemic, not just individual.

2. Concept:
A life-simulation game where players are randomly assigned a socioeconomic status at birth.

Gameplay:
Players make decisions about education, healthcare, housing, and employment, but available choices vary depending on starting income. Random events (medical emergencies, job loss, inheritance, networking opportunities) dramatically affect trajectories.

Serious Purpose:
Shows how structural inequality shapes life outcomes beyond “working hard.”

Core Mechanic:
Two players can play side by side and compare how different their opportunities are.

3. Concept:
A narrative-driven decision game about navigating everyday spaces (school, stores, job interviews, police encounters).

Gameplay:
Players experience branching storylines where microaggressions, profiling, or cultural assumptions affect outcomes. Dialogue choices influence trust, safety, and social standing.

Serious Purpose:
Encourages empathy by demonstrating how race shapes daily interactions in subtle and overt ways.

Core Message:
Bias operates both structurally and interpersonally.

4. Concept:
A strategy game where players run for local office in a politically divided town.

Gameplay:
Players must balance campaign promises, donor influence, public opinion, and personal values. Decisions affect approval ratings, media coverage, and policy outcomes.

Twist:
Accepting corporate donations may help you win but limits the policies you can realistically pass.

Serious Purpose:
Explores political compromise, corruption, and voter polarization.

Core Message:
Political systems shape what leaders can actually accomplish.

5. Concept:
A time-management and survival simulation about being a nontraditional adult college student.

Gameplay:
Players juggle coursework, a job, childcare, financial stress, and social isolation. Energy and time are limited resources. Unexpected events (sick child, overtime shifts, tuition hikes) force difficult trade-offs.

Serious Purpose:
Highlights barriers adult learners face that traditional students may not.

Core Message:
Higher education is not equally accessible for everyone.

Reading Questions:

what learning games have you played? can you categorize them by the theory of learning types: behaviorism, constructivism, constructivism or social nature? if you played more than one which was the most effective?

Behaviorism:

Duolingo – Uses streaks, points, levels, and instant feedback to reinforce correct answers.

Constructivism:

Minecraft – Players learn by building, experimenting, and solving spatial or logic problems.

Social Nature:

Among Us – Encourages communication, deduction, and social reasoning.

is gamification bullshit, what is ian bogost’s argument and do you agree? where have you encountered it outside of class and what was your experience?

Ian Bogost argues that gamification is “bullshit” because it often reduces games to superficial elements like points, badges, and leaderboards without capturing what actually makes games meaningful. He says companies use gamification as a marketing tool to manipulate behavior rather than create genuine engagement.

I partially agree because many gamified systems feel shallow and rely on extrinsic rewards, which can lose effectiveness over time. However, when thoughtfully designed, gamified systems can motivate participation, and they just shouldn’t replace meaningful design.

Ive encountered it in apps that aren’t game but have a point system like Starbucks or Sheetz.

What is a serious game and why aren’t they chocolate covered broccoli?

A serious game is a game designed primarily for education, training, activism, or social impact rather than pure entertainment. Examples include military simulations, health training games, and persuasive games like Observance. They are not “chocolate covered broccoli” when the gameplay itself meaningfully connects to the message. The phrase suggests disguising boring education with fun elements, but strong serious games integrate learning into the mechanics so that playing the game is the learning and not just sugar on top of a lecture.

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Game design 2 week 4 Game ideas

Aleah Dudek

  1. Theme: Climate justice
    Mechanic: Economic simulation

Every player benefits from pollution at first, but emissions secretly accumulate and trigger disasters that hit the poorest players hardest.

2. Theme: Housing insecurity
Mechanic: Tile laying survival

Pets move through temporary homes as buildings disappear. You don’t control the world, only how long your animal can remain safe.

3. Theme: Forgotten deaths and systemic erasure
Mechanic: Hidden information and area control

Players move through a city where invisible ghosts represent unrecorded victims. Only by standing still can you see them, but doing so makes you vulnerable.

4. Theme: Climate change
Mechanic: Cooperative survival

The dragon’s fire represents rising heat and disasters. Players can fight it, but every attack makes it burn hotter.

5. Theme: Climate refugees
Mechanic: Tile erosion and migration

Rising tides wake the Kraken. Each round, parts of the ocean map sink, forcing fleets to flee while the monster grows.

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5 Serious game ideas

Flight or death-

A card game where everybody has a role to keep the plane operational while some have to sabotage the plane

Balance of Rha-

5 different roles with different ways for each player to win. Nobody knows your role but the player secrelty has to push their ideal to the public without grabbing too much attention.

Build That City-

You collect cards to build infrastructures based off what the game gave you. You can trade with other players to achieve your goal faster, but trade at your own risk.

To Ciph or Deciph

You get a random set up numbers and colors based off the card you drew and the player gets to ask questions to try to decipher your code.

KaBlooey

A random player has a bomb and they have to reach the goal before anyone else does. After every set of turns, and event card comes out which could either help you or screw you over.

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Week 3 Homework

Homework ideas/rules 

“Generate a list of five game ideas that revolve around the theme of empathy. Wrinkle: Take one of the five ideas and make it an alternate reality game.”

  1. Alone
    1. A game where you slime life as someone with depression. It would be a choose-your-own adventure, and you could recover or fall further. The goal of the game would be to show people how serious the experience can be
  2. Adoption
    1. Play as a pet in an adoption center. Learn to appeal to humans and try to get adopted. Allows people to feel sympathy for animals and focus on adopting and not “shopping” for pets
  3. Gaia
    1. Play as Mother Earth, who is dealing with the effects of humanity and how we are polluting the planet
  4. K-12
    1. You simulate a kid growing up in school from K-12, learning who they are as a person, and every choice you make affects how they graduate, or if they do
  5. Exploration
    1. You travel the land and choose what to destroy and preserve based on ancient civilizations.

Rules for a game from week 1:

Star Sailor!

The purpose of the game is to gather materials to keep exploring space. But will you destroy these newfound planets to keep exploring? Or will you fall into the void of space to keep the planets you stumble upon safe?

The goal of the game is to explore planets to gather resources, which can be used to explore further and collect pets and upgrades. Players can end the game whenever they choose, but the only limit is how many cards there are. (Basically infinite)

Basic Mechanics:

  • You fly in a ship, and each turn you pull a card to select what planet you land on
  • It costs resources to fly; either you can claim resources that are left on the planet, leave the planet alone, or destroy the planet for extra resources.
  • Players will have a mat in front of them that has resource sliders, a character icon/token, and spots to put planets they destroyed (so they can’t be visited again)
  • Players can use extra resources to get upgrades to travel to the most planets, or adopt pets!  
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THE KAELEGO FREQUENCY RULES

An Alternate Reality Game
“Online Friendship / Upside Down”

Game Overview

You are an Archivist, tasked with protecting memories, places, and people from being lost. You do this by exploring hidden clues, recording real moments of friendship, and using old-school media like cassette tapes, letters, and folders.

The game happens in the real world and online:

  • Old or “dead” websites
  • Physical mail
  • Audio recordings
  • Real-world locations
  • Interactions with other players

There is no single main character. You are both watcher and watched, and your success depends on your connection with another player, your Online Friend.

How to Start

  1. Find the “dead” 1990s tech company website.
  2. Inspect the site’s source code.
  3. Locate a hidden PO Box address.
  4. Mail a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Rule: If you don’t send something physical, you are not in the game.

Player Roles

  • Every player is an Archivist.
  • Each Archivist is secretly paired with an Online Friend.
  • You do not know your Online Friend’s real identity.

Core Rules

1. Artifacts Are Never Perfect

  • You will receive a cassette tape or USB with scrambled audio.
  • The audio is intentionally distorted.
  • You may edit it but never make it perfect.

2. Record “Sounds of Friendship”

  • Examples: laughter, shared meals, natural conversations, cooperative work.
  • Not allowed: solo narration, acting, or music created for the game.
  • Upload your recording to the URL included in your artifact.

Rule: The sound must be a real connection with real people.

3. Listen to the Return Signal

  • The website will send back a warped melody.
  • It may contain hidden clues, reversed audio, or GPS coordinates.
  • You must listen to it, no skipping.

4. Visit the Physical Locations

  • Go to the GPS location provided (examples: old libraries, closed malls, abandoned tech spaces).
  • You may find: folders, notes, cassette fragments, or instructions from other Archivists.

Rule: Take one item and leave something behind.

5. Archivist Etiquette

  • Never remove everything from a location.
  • Never vandalize or damage the place.
  • Never tell strangers the ARG exists.

6. Your Online Friend

  • They monitor your uploads and send you fragments to interpret.
  • At some point, you will realize the “entity” observing you is another player.

Rule: Trust is optional; collaboration is inevitable.

7. Mutual Restoration

  • You cannot win alone.
  • You must complete tasks on behalf of your Online Friend (recording, traveling, or preserving).
  • You are restoring memories you never lived.

8. Use Analog Media

  • Allowed: cassette tapes, printed photos, handwritten notes, burned CDs, folders.
  • Discouraged: perfect digital files, AI-generated voices, clean edits.

Rule: Imperfection proves authenticity.

9. The Threat

  • There is no monster.
  • Danger comes from forgotten memories, missing items, and corrupted audio.
  • If something is forgotten, it becomes unsafe.

10. The End

  • The game has no official ending.
  • It concludes when:
    1. Two players acknowledge each other
    2. A final artifact is exchanged
    3. Both choose to stop or continue preserving

Rule: The friendship is the archive.

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Game Ideas

The Kaelego Frequency is an Alternate Reality Game inspired by Archive 81 that reimagines the world around you as a playground for strange rituals and restoration. It all kicks off when you stumble on what looks like a “dead” website from a 1990s tech company. If you dig into the source code, you’ll find an old-school PO Box address. Send in a self-addressed envelope and you’ll get back a warped cassette tape or a glitched-out USB drive packed with encrypted audio files. The main event? It’s called “The Reverse Feed,” where you capture and upload “friendship sounds”, think laughter with your roommates or the chaos of a group dinner, via a hidden URL. But when your audio comes back, it’s transformed into a weird, haunting remix, and it hides GPS coordinates. The clues send you on a scavenger hunt to “Physical Anchors” like sketchy old payphones or forgotten library corners, where you’ll find folders left by other players (known as “Archivists”). The deeper you go, the more you realize you’re being watched by an “Online Friend”, but plot twist: they’re another player, just like you. Together, you’re trying to restore each other’s memories and fend off something supernatural that threatens you both. In the end, it’s about forming a real bond with someone you’ve never met, all built on that Gen Z anxiety of being forgotten. Analog tech, digital mystery, and uncanny friendship, where reality and the internet get totally blurred.

The Archivist’s Echo is a narrative game built around the idea that understanding someone is the ultimate act of care. In this world obsessed with efficiency, you play as a Memory Technician, not here to “fix” old people, but to actually witness them. You enter fading minds to help organize their last thoughts, taking on all the sensory overload, emotional baggage, and weird associations they’ve collected. Instead of a linear story, you get a trippy mind-map to explore, unlocking memories by syncing your mood with the client’s vibes. It’s less about solving problems and more about validating a whole life so someone can leave with dignity. You’ll wander through a surreal, dreamlike 3D landscape, solving puzzles built around emotional resonance: pair the right sound or smell with the right memory, but don’t rush, an empathy meter forces you to slow down and literally breathe with the client, or risk losing memories forever. The visuals are all dissolving impressionist washes, like watercolors in the rain, and the binaural audio both guides you and sets the emotional tempo. If you’re into cozy indie games that hit hard, this one’s for you: low stress, high feels, and designed for anyone who wants meaning and comfort over grind or fixing what’s broken.

Mother’s Good Luck is like Coraline meets a psychological escape room, but way more unsettling. You’re this kid stuck in a perfectly curated, looping childhood made by Mother, who says she just wants to protect you forever, but it feels more like control than love. The wild part is you don’t fight your way out; you have to be empathetic and dig for the cracks in her world, called Missed Opportunities, to understand what’s broken inside her. The “Good Luck” system is genius: play by the rules and things stay warm and easy, but the minute you rebel, the world goes dark and the creepy stuff shows up, pushing you to find hidden paths out. The whole vibe flips between cozy nostalgia, like soft lighting, giant toys, and that childhood dream feel, and this eerie sense that something’s off, especially with rooms that look unfinished or sounds that turn from calming to straight-up bone-chilling. You solve puzzles by literally sewing memories back together, which is both weirdly wholesome and super unnerving. If you’re into games that mess with your feelings and flip comfort into horror, this is peak “creepy-cozy.” It’s the kind of game that makes you rethink what safety and love really mean, and whether always doing what you’re told is really for the best.

The Hive’s Debt is a social horror game with two timelines, inspired by Yellowjackets and the idea that “the past isn’t buried, it’s hungry.” Players move between the harsh winter after a team’s plane crash in the wilderness and their troubled adult lives twenty years later, as the “Wilderness” starts to affect the present. The main gameplay focuses on managing both timelines. Choices in the past, like betrayal or violence, have lasting effects in the future, showing up as paranoia, broken relationships, and blocked-off places in modern suburbia. The game avoids simple ideas of good and evil, pushing players to pick between “Primal” survival and “Civilized” morality. Primal choices help characters survive in the past but bring strange, ritual-like consequences in the present. Players must handle survival tasks like hunger and hunting in the past, while also dealing with hiding evidence and recovering memories in the present, all while trying to keep the truth hidden. The game’s look and sound set gritty wilderness horror against cold, sterile suburbia, with strange echoes connecting the two. A shared delusion system makes it hard to tell what’s real, mixing trauma and possible supernatural events. Made for fans of deep, character-driven horror, The Hive’s Debt is about social tension, moral choices, and the lasting price of survival, where recovery, time, and morality are always linked.

The Last Tea House is a narrative game inspired by The Umbrella Academy about being the “normal” sibling in a deeply dysfunctional super-powered family. Trapped in a magical Tea House during a memory-erasing storm, you’re stuck making tea, managing egos, and trying to keep everyone together while the rain outside slowly deletes who they are. The house is protected by a giant Umbrella powered by family harmony, so every argument weakens it. Your choices, where people sit, what tea you serve, and who has to sacrifice a power or memory, directly affect whether the family survives the night. Cozy on the surface but emotionally heavy underneath, the game builds to one final question: do you follow your father’s cold logic to keep the family intact, or let it fall apart so you can finally be free?

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Game Design 2 Week 3 Game Rules Draft

Aleah, Mason, Lauren

Game Title: Always Waiting

A cooperative competitive board game about care, time, and responsibility.

Goal

Keep your pets healthy, happy, and loved.
If you care for them well, you can adopt more pets.
If you neglect them… they don’t die.
They just wait.

 Players

2–5 players

 Time

30–45 minutes

 Components

  • 1 Game Board (a room with action spaces: Kitchen, Bathroom, Yard, Clinic, Bedroom, School, Park)
  • Pet Cards (each with: Hunger, Cleanliness, Happiness, Thirst, Love, Intelligence meters)
  • Status Cubes (to track each meter)
  • Time Deck (event cards)
  • Care Dice (1 six-sided die)
  • Loneliness Tokens
  • Adoption Cards
  • Player Action Tokens

Setup

Each player starts with:

  • 1 Pet Card
  • All meters at 3
  • 0 Loneliness Tokens

Shuffle the Time Deck and place it facedown.

 Turn Structure

Each round = 1 Day

  1. Draw a Time Card
    Something happens:
    • “You were busy today: -1 Happiness”
    • “Rainy day: +1 Comfort if you’re home”
    • “Forgot dinner: -1 Hunger”
  2. Player Actions (2 per turn)
    Move to a room and perform its care action:
RoomAction
KitchenFeed (+1 Hunger)
BathroomBathe (+1 Clean)
YardPlay (+1 Happiness)
BedroomComfort (+1 Love)
ParkHydrate (+1 Thirst)
SchoolTeach Trick (+1 Intelligence)
ClinicHeal (remove 1 Loneliness)

You may care for your own pet or another player’s.

 Neglect Rule

At the end of each day:

  • If any meter is 0, place a Loneliness Token on that pet.
  • If a pet has 3 Loneliness Tokens, it becomes Waiting:
    • You cannot adopt new pets.
    • The pet no longer gains Happiness until comfort is given.

 Adoption Rule

If all meters on one pet reach 5, draw an Adoption Card and gain a new pet.
Now you must care for both.

Emotional Mechanic

If you skip caring for a pet for 2 rounds:

Place the pet in the center of the board.
It is now waiting.
It does nothing until someone comforts it.

Win Condition

The game ends when the Time Deck runs out.

  • Winner: Player with the most loved pets (highest Love total).
  • Co-op Variant: Everyone wins if no pet is Waiting at the end.

Theme Message

Love isn’t automatic.
It needs time.
If you leave, it waits.

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Game Design 2 week 3 game ideas

  1. Heartbeat City (Life-Sim With Emotional Systems) The city runs on invisible “emotional energy.”If people feel ignored, the world dims; when they feel heard, the city becomes brighter and safer. You help strangers by noticing feelings, not just completing tasks.
  2. It’s Still Breathing. You explore an abandoned hospital where the “monsters” are spirits who died feeling ignored or unloved. They follow you, whispering their regrets instead of attacking. You survive by listening, not fighting. Horror: psychological, haunting voices, flickering lights.
  3. The Ones Who Stayed. You play as a town that was “left behind.”. Ghosts roam, but they are stuck waiting for people who will never return. The town shifts based on how gently you treat its residents. Horror: empty streets, fog, slow dread.
  4. Don’t Leave Me on Read. You’re texting someone who slowly becomes more real—and more unstable. If you stop replying, the lights in your house flicker and the phone starts vibrating on its own. The horror is realizing how much power attention has. Fear theme: emotional dependence, digital haunting.
  5. Threadbound. Everyone is born with glowing threads that connect them to people they’ll matter to. Yours is tangled, broken, and leads into dangerous lands. You follow it to repair bonds—and discover who you’re meant to become. Adventure feel: fantasy, exploration
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Week 3 — Games for Change: Sarah Juristy

Thoughts on What We Played in Class

Dumb Ways to Die
This game uses repetition, humor, and fast failure to build awareness through habit formation. Instead of lecturing players about safety, it creates quick cause-and-effect loops that reinforce attention and caution. Its strength is that the message is embedded in player action rather than text or narrative explanation.

Fake It to Make It
This game is effective because it makes the player directly responsible for spreading misinformation. The mechanics demonstrate that harmful systems can grow because they are efficient and rewarding, not necessarily because participants are malicious. The uncomfortable feeling of succeeding through unethical strategies is part of the persuasive design.

Cards Against Calamity
This game works as a social reflection tool. It uses humor to reduce player defensiveness while encouraging discussion about serious topics. Its effectiveness depends on the group dynamic, but it can create opportunities for players to confront difficult realities through conversation and shared reaction.

Cast Your Vote
This game helps players understand civic participation by breaking complex systems into understandable steps. It reduces intimidation around voting by making the process feel manageable and procedural rather than abstract or overwhelming.

Detroit: Become Human
This game builds empathy through branching narrative and consequence visibility. Players see how social systems, prejudice, and power structures influence available choices. The game is most effective when it forces players to live with the results of their decisions rather than offering easy moral victories.

Gris
Gris communicates emotional experiences through visual and mechanical design rather than direct storytelling. It encourages emotional reflection and demonstrates how games can create empathy through mood, pacing, and environmental interaction.

Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds builds empathy through discovery and perspective. Players gradually understand the lives and histories of others through exploration. The game emphasizes curiosity, humility, and acceptance rather than competition or dominance.

Five Game Ideas Around Empathy

Borrowed Minutes
Players have a limited number of daily actions that must be divided between work, health, relationships, and survival tasks. The game builds empathy by showing how limited time resources force difficult life tradeoffs.

Signal Lost
Players cooperate while dealing with incomplete communication. One player has information but limited ways to share it. The game builds empathy for communication barriers and information overload.

The Room Next Door
Players live in a shared building and learn about neighbors through small interactions and environmental storytelling. The game teaches empathy by showing how behavior often has hidden context.

Care Cycle
Players manage community wellbeing using limited support resources. The game demonstrates how systems, not individual choices alone, shape outcomes.

Alternate Reality Game — Kindness Protocol
Players complete real-world empathy challenges delivered through text, QR codes, or hidden messages. The game tracks participation through real-world interactions, encouraging empathy through behavior practice rather than simulation alone.

Rule Set + Prototype Plan (Closed Loop)

Game Concept — Closed Loop

Closed Loop is a systems management game where players run a fully closed city ecosystem. Nothing can leave the system, meaning every product eventually becomes waste that must be processed, stored, or converted into new resources. The goal is to maintain population wellbeing while preventing environmental system collapse.

Objective

Players attempt to maintain population stability and environmental balance over a fixed number of rounds. Winning is based on long-term sustainability rather than short-term growth.

Players / Time

2–4 players
30–45 minutes

Core Resources

Population
Energy
Materials
Waste
Stability (tracks system health)

Turn Structure

Each round represents one operational cycle. Players produce goods, support population needs, and manage waste processing. At the end of each round, waste converts into environmental pressure if not processed.

Core Rules

Every production action generates waste tokens that enter the system on the next round. Waste can be converted into energy or materials, but conversion is inefficient. If waste storage exceeds capacity, system stability decreases. If stability reaches zero, the city collapses.

Players can invest in infrastructure upgrades that increase efficiency, but upgrades require multiple rounds to complete and temporarily reduce available resources.

Prototype Version 1 (Paper Test)

The first prototype will use index cards for buildings and systems, tokens for resources, and a simple stability tracker. The focus of testing will be whether players clearly feel tension between short-term production and long-term sustainability.

Iteration Plan

After the first playtest, adjustments will focus on making long-term consequences more visible. If players ignore sustainability without immediate penalty, delayed consequences will be made stronger or more predictable. If players feel overwhelmed, resource categories will be simplified to maintain decision clarity.

Playtest Goal for 2.19

The goal is to confirm that players experience meaningful tradeoffs between growth and sustainability and understand the closed system concept without needing long rule explanations.

Reading Questions (Flanagan Chapters 1 and 3)

How does Flanagan’s definition of games differ from Crawford and Salen/Zimmerman?
Flanagan frames games as cultural tools that can challenge norms and create reflection. Crawford focuses on structural properties like interaction and conflict, while Salen and Zimmerman define games as rule-based systems with measurable outcomes. Flanagan expands the purpose of games beyond structure into social and cultural impact.

What is an activist game?
An activist game is designed to influence awareness or behavior around real-world issues. It persuades through systems and player participation rather than direct messaging.

What other games share perfect information?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Checkers, Othello, Connect Four, and Nine Men’s Morris are all perfect information games because all players can see the full game state at all times.

Why did chance games hold spiritual importance?
Chance outcomes were often interpreted as fate or divine will, making gambling or randomization tools part of spiritual or ritual decision-making.

Earliest conflict between religion/government and games + modern examples?
Early conflicts centered on gambling and dice. Later examples include pinball bans and cultural panic around role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons.

What is a fox game? Modern example?
Fox games are asymmetric chase games with one powerful player versus many weaker players. Modern asymmetric multiplayer games follow similar design patterns.

Purpose of Mansion of Happiness?
It was designed to teach moral behavior through gameplay, rewarding virtue and punishing vice.

Why did Surrealists and Fluxus artists play games?
They used games to challenge logic, social norms, and traditional art boundaries while encouraging creative participation.

What signals profound changes in games? WWII pinball reskins?
Changes in rules, goals, and rewards signal deeper meaning changes. WWII pinball machines were reskinned with wartime imagery and messaging.

What statements did Fluxus artists make by reskinning games?
They showed that social and economic systems are built from changeable rules, not fixed realities.

How are artists using war games?
They repurpose conflict systems to critique power, violence, and social structure.

Why is player agency important?
Agency allows players to experience consequences of decisions directly, making critical messages more impactful.