serious games is a hands-on design workshop that invites students to explore how video games can become powerful tools for social reflection, empathy, and critical thinking. Participants learn how interactive design can address real-world issues and create meaningful player experiences that go far beyond entertainment.

This 2.5-hour workshop introduces the concept of serious games, games designed to engage with socially relevant themes such as conflict, misinformation, mental health, digital ethics, and more. Through guided discussion, case studies, and a fast-paced team design sprint, students develop game design posters that communicates both a message and a playable idea.

[about the workshop]

To ground the workshop in real-world examples and shared design values, we examine two award-winning titles from Poland and Germany:

• This War of Mine (11 bit studios, Poland)

• Through the Darkest of Times (Paintbucket Games, Germany)

These case studies highlight how interactive systems, aesthetics, and player choices can express powerful social themes and shape public understanding.

[workshop format]

Participants: 20 students, grouped into 4 teams of 5

Structure:

• 👋Introduction & Lecture (20 min): Overview of serious games and the role of socially conscious design. Includes a welcome from the German Embassy in Warsaw (main organizer of the event).

• 🏗️Workshop Setup (10 min): Team instructions and overview of the digital Serious Game Guide.

• 🎨Design Sprint (60 min): Teams create a game design poster using the Serious Game Guide prepared for the event.

• 👩‍🏫Presentations & Feedback (30 min): Each group presents their concept for discussion and critique.

• 🙋Open Q&A (30 min): Shared reflection on serious games, their impact, and future opportunities.

All teams upload their final poster as a PNG or PDF file directly to this itch.io event page.

[themes & tools]

Every team is assigned a social issue that forms the core of their concept. Together with the Serious Game Guide — created exclusively for this project — participants craft a clear, purposeful game idea that merges message, mechanics, and player experience.

Students are encouraged to bring laptops or tablets for collaborative work on a shared whiteboard or digital canvas.

[submissions]

What Is Truth? is a narrative-driven serious game where you play as a local journalist struggling through economic pressure, one small lie at a time. Craft front-page stories using real or fabricated sources and watch how your choices ripple through your community, your relationships, and your own sense of integrity. As small distortions grow into widespread misinformation, experience firsthand how everyday decisions can reshape society, erode trust, and ultimately determine your own future freedom.

Frontline Frequency is a tense survival narrative set inside a sealed conflict zone, an isolated “black box” of modern hybrid war. Cut off from normal life and surrounded by hostile forces, you rely on scattered radio signals to navigate chaos, gather information, and find a path to escape. But every choice carries consequences: exploit others to survive, or risk everything to stay human. In a world shaped by terrorism, scarcity, and misinformation, the FM waves may be your only friend, but they can also become your biggest enemy.

Every Voice Counts is a political strategy game where you step into the center of a national crisis and must navigate the fragile process of democratic decision-making. Propose laws, debate opposing viewpoints, and manage public trust as shifting interests and competing values shape every outcome. In a system where compromise is unavoidable and pleasing everyone is impossible, your choices reveal the tension between ideal change and political reality.

[partners]

This workshop is a collaboration between:

• German Embassy in Warsaw

• Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology

• PJATK GAME LAB

[organizing team]

• Thorsten Kerp (German Embassy in Warsaw)
• Benji Hanussek (CD PROJEKT RED)
• Magdalena Urban-Tomaševič (German Embassy in Warsaw)
• Igor Sienkiewicz (PJATK GAME LAB)
• Janset Koç (PJATK GAME LAB)