Back for another year, this updated combo seminar-workshop introduces key design features of serious games and then guides audience members through the design process with a custom scenario.
Description:
It is becoming more common to use games in the classroom - and for good reason! Research shows that games can help motivate and engage people to learn and try new things. But what about outside of the classroom; can we use games to teach skills, to promote health, or to change hearts and minds? This is where serious games come in: games that are entertaining, but have a purpose beyond just entertainment.
The event will begin with an introduction to designing serious games. Then, in small groups, audience members will use what they learned to address a scenario by planning and designing a game which incorporates key design features of serious games.
All levels of experience are welcome! Whether you already have an idea for your own serious games, or you just want to learn more about this very interesting design process, this event is for you.
Build better games together in this interactive co-design workshop with Daryl Andrews, Kathleen Mercury, and Morgan Dontanville. Explore collaboration and creative partnership in teams.
Description:
Iterate. Debate. Create. Co-design is more than splitting the workload — it’s learning how to think, decide, and create together. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll work in teams to explore the collaborative design workflow, from idea generation to structured iteration. We’ll share practical tools and discussion prompts to help you navigate creative tension, divide responsibilities, and build stronger games through partnership. Expect active participation and multiple chances to apply what you learn.
** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
Designing for All Ages — Prototypes, Playtests, & Practical Rules
Summary:
This session will give you hands-on experience with designing or refining a game so it remains engaging across abilities, with a focus on accessible play, clear teachability, and scalable rules.
Description:
This session gives participants the chance to actively design or refine a game with the goal of making it engaging for players of different abilities and experience levels. Through a mix of guided exercises, small group work, and quick playtesting, you’ll explore how to create games that are easy to learn, intuitive to teach, and flexible enough to grow with the player. The focus is on building a strong, accessible core while layering in optional complexity so the game stays interesting over time. By the end, participants will have a simple prototype or rule set, along with practical tools and patterns they can use to continue developing inclusive, well-balanced games beyond the session.
** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
Designing for Belonging: Bringing Tabletop Games to Under-Resourced Communities
Summary:
How tabletop games can create access, belonging, and leadership in under-resourced communities, using real-world experience and community-centered design practices.
Description:
Tabletop games are powerful tools for imagination, collaboration, and storytelling, yet many communities never experience them due to cost, access, or lack of representation. This session draws from community-based practice to explore how games can be introduced in under-resourced spaces in intentional and sustainable ways.
Using the development of Battle of Concha Corner as a case study, this talk examines designing and facilitating games with real people, real neighborhoods, and real stakes in mind. Attendees will hear lessons learned from bringing games into community centers and youth programs, including what works, what fails, and what often gets overlooked.
The session emphasizes leading with passion while staying grounded in responsibility, listening, and collaboration, offering practical insights for expanding tabletop gaming beyond traditional hobby spaces.
Designing for Belonging: Bringing Tabletop Games to Under-Resourced Communities
Summary:
How tabletop games can create access, belonging, and leadership in under-resourced communities, using real-world experience and community-centered design practices.
Description:
Tabletop games are powerful tools for imagination, collaboration, & storytelling, yet many communities never experience them due to cost, access, or lack of representation. This session draws from community-based practice to explore how games can be introduced in under-resourced spaces in intentional & sustainable ways. Using the development of Battle of Concha Corner as a case study, this talk examines designing & facilitating games with real people, real neighborhoods, & real stakes in mind. Attendees will hear what works, what fails, & what often gets overlooked. The session emphasizes leading with passion while staying grounded in responsibility, listening, & collaboration, offering practical insights for expanding tabletop gaming beyond traditional hobby spaces. ** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
Learn how to design experiences that spark genuine insight, using principles from cognitive psychology, puzzle craft, and game design. Designed for all attendees.
Description:
Great puzzles, lessons, and games hinge on a single feeling: the moment when scattered pieces suddenly click into place. This session explores how to intentionally design for that experience instead of hoping it appears by accident. Drawing from puzzle-hunt design, classroom practice, and cognitive science, we’ll examine how solvers build mental models, why misdirection sometimes delights and sometimes frustrates, and how to tune difficulty so insight feels earned. Participants will dissect real examples, diagnose why they succeed or fail, and practice reshaping a weak challenge into one that guides discovery without giving away the answer. Leave with practical tools for crafting clearer clues, cleaner feedback loops, and more memorable “Aha!” moments in any learning or play environment.
Destructing Instruction: Search&Destroy Blasts a Path to its Future Selves
Summary:
The designers of the library instruction game, Search&Destroy return to share the exciting growth of their project: making library instruction fun for students and easier for librarians.
Description:
With Search&Destroy in the classroom, students learn database skills through killer card mechanics, tied to information literacy learning outcomes.
The team spent 2025 expanding into new editions; Search&Destroy: Biomedical, intended for library instruction by health sciences librarians and Buscar&Destruír: Edición Español, a complete Spanish language translation. The OG Search&Destroy has circulated over 700 copies at over 300 locations on 5 continents and the new editions are also spreading rapidly.
In this session the designers will explain Search&Destroy’s design, mechanics, and learning outcomes. They will reflect on the project’s growth into new editions and share best practices for using games in the classroom. Attendees will play Search&Destroy, meaning massively fun library database destruction. Bring your laptop to engage and enrage.
Development: What It Is, How to Do It, & Why It's Important
Summary:
In this session dive into the world development, and learn what processes a game often goes through after a publisher signs it, and how developers approach working on projects.
Description:
Learn the ins and outs of development from industry professionals. This session will cover role of development in game production, how to approach it, and what to expect from developers as designer. This session will be dived into a lecture and a Q&A session.
** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
** GAME DESIGN ACADEMY ONLY EVENT / NOT INTENDED FOR GENERAL TRADE DAY AUDIENCE **
What makes a good dexterity game? Discuss theory, variety, componentry, and production, along with a Q&A to come up with practical ways to implement your concepts in prototypes.
Description:
What makes a good dexterity game? An analysis of ones that succeed and the pitfalls of medium. Come join an open forum where we discuss theory, variety, componentry, and production. This will include a Q&A where we can help as a group to iron out your ideas and come up with practical ways to implement your concepts in prototypes.
Dungeons, Dragons and Science!: Creating educational TTRPG materials for classrooms and clubs.
Summary:
A professor shares his experiences creating TTRPG materials inspired by real-world biology to teach scientific concepts and problem solving to students in grades 6-12 in both class and club settings.
Description:
Reasoning, problem solving and teamwork/collaboration are vital skills for scientific inquiry and learning in general. These same skills are a key part of most table-top role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. It is this overlap that opens a door to exploring new ways of building these skills both in and out of the classroom. In this presentation, Dr. Phil Anderson, an associate professor of biology at the University of Illinois, will present the conception, development and application of D&D and other TTRPG materials for use in 6-12 science education. These include homebrew mechanics for creatures and player items based in actual biology as well as a series of connected modules which introduce core concepts in biology such as biomechanics, ecology, genetics and invasive species. All the materials will eventually be freely available for download by educators and gamers alike.