Civic Tech Field Guide
Sharing knowledge and productively growing the fieldThe Tech > Media > Games and gamification - (92)
Digital or analog games and activities designed to promote civic engagement and awareness through play. Many of the digital games are one-off projects, and aren’t maintained over long periods of time (for example, when browsers remove support for Adobe Flash). Gamification seeks to bring elements and mechanics of gameplay to more arduous tasks, like registering to vote.
Suggested reading:
- Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History – A history of board games and the powerful ideologies embedded within them, by Alex Andriesse, Public Domain Review (2019)
- How Minecraft Is Teaching Kids to Face the Threat of Climate Change – A case study of efforts to teach young children in Australia about climate action through the incredibly popular game.
- The gamification of journalism. Anna Thulin looks at how games and gamification can be used in journalism to build audience engagement and loyalty.
Showing 92 Results
A 2024 Election Simulation Game
Reach
Queens, NYThe grassroots organizing app that lets you meet people where they are.
캠페인즈에 뱃지가 생겼어요! (Campaign badges)
43, Susaek-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Republic of KoreaGamification features on the Parti Campaigns platform
This app finds missing map data in your vicinity and displays it on a map as quests. Solve each quest by visiting the location on-site and answering a simple question to update the map.
Mapeo is a free, easy-to-use, open source set of tools for collecting and mapping information. Mapeo was built by Digital Democracy with and for earth defenders to easily document environmental & human rights information and to collect data about their land. It was designed to work in entirely offline environments, is highly customizable, and built on a decentralized peer-to-peer database that allows communities to own their own data.
Swipe and tap. Put communities on the map. Help humanitarians find and help vulnerable people.
MapRoulette has dozens of mapping Challenges that are created by experienced mappers. Each Challenge is about improving OSM in one very specific way
Gali Fakta
IndianaA new kind of media literacy game specifically tailored for an Indonesian audience.
Exploradores da Cidadania
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)A board game to energize participatory sessions in primary school classrooms, practically exploring various dimensions of citizen participation. Wander down the road of this game and improve your territory!
Incrições abertas em 08/08 - É um programa de Educação Cidadã que se baseia nos princípios de governo aberto: transparência, prestação de contas, participação cívica, tecnologia e inovação. O objetivo do programa é promover a educação cívica e estimular a sociedade civil a participar ativamente nas políticas do Estado, reconhecendo-se como agente de transformação em sua realidade local.
Public Option for AI (PO4AI) is an immersive experience designed for elected officials and city staff to explore how residents’ voices might be centered in decision-making around public-interest technologies.
Future Perfect is a live, choose-your-own-adventure game where players join an imagined society called Tomorrowland.
Digital Safetea
Kampala, UgandaAn interactive game presenting scenarios to learn about existing and emerging digital safety issues
A game to arm people against disinformation
Political Arena
United States of America (the)Political Arena is a one-of-a-kind strategy/sim about American power where no two playthroughs are the same
Stop Your Government
LjubljanaThe interactive story game aims to inspire young people to stand for what they believe is right and become active in civil society and non-governmental organizations.
Danes je nov dan
LjubljanaLjubljana, Slovenia based civic tech NGO, focusing efforts on (digital) political participation, open data, transparency, and public institutional oversight.
An award for the best games for social impact of the year
Fingerspelling.xyz is a browser-based app that uses a webcam and machine learning to analyze your hand shapes so you can learn to sign the ASL alphabet correctly.
Serious Games Initiative
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20004-3027The Serious Games Initiative communicates science and policy complexities through the world’s most dynamic medium: gaming.
The gaming giant is making its accessibility-related patents royalty-free
SuperSkills! is a learning ecosystem, developed by Learning Economy and LEGO Foundation. Children ages 4-12 embark on quests to help save a league of super heroes by participating in learning-through-play activities that send them out into the world of discovery and away from their devices.
Camino
Oakland, CaliforniaCamino is a 2D side-scrolling stealth game with Afro-surrealist elements that challenge the player to carefully manage resources and make use of their environment to fight for their loved ones and survive the onslaught of colonization.
BVV-Planspiel
BerlinIm BVV-Planspiel machen Sie gemeinsam mit anderen Spieler:innen Bezirkspolitik. In einem konkreten Streitfall entwickeln Sie die Position einer fiktiven Partei und vertreten sie in der BVV. Ziel ist es, einen konkreten Antrag an das Bezirksamt zu richten.
Unity for Nonprofits Offer
435 Brannan St, San Francisco, California, USAGet real-time 3D content creation software for your nonprofit or public library through Unity for Nonprofits at TechSoup.
In Cascadia 9.0, you play as several different characters to learn how to survive and thrive in this earth-shaking catastrophe!
Viral Spiral
India (Bhārat)Viral Spiral is an adaptive digital card game about sharing news on the Internet. The game reflects the ways and reasons misinformation is shared, letting players experience first hand the temptation to share fake news for their own gain and face the consequences of the harm it causes around them.
Improve your team's data knowledge and skills
You are the senior editor of the world’s most popular and trusted news organization. You have the enviable power to set the news agenda, and thereby shift the zeitgeist.
Persuasive Games
Atlanta, GA, USAWe design, build, and distribute videogames for persuasion, instruction, and activism
Fakey
IndianaThis game aims to teach media literacy and study how people interact with misinformation.
Troll Factory
Finland (Suomi)Troll Factory was developed by a team of experts at Yle, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
PolitiTruth is a non-profit game of distinguishing political fact from fiction.
a free online game funded by the State Dept. that helps fight #disinformation, now playable in 6 different languages
Arsgames es una asociación cultural que promueve y gestiona proyectos de carácter cultural relacionados con los videojuegos y las nuevas tecnologías a partir de áreas de acción transversales: pedagogía y formación, investigación científica, inclusión digital y participación ciudadana.
Copia Gaming is our ongoing initiative to design and facilitate a variety of games that explore serious and important subjects.
Judgment Call is an award-winning game and team-based activity that puts Microsoft’s AI principles of fairness, privacy and security, reliability and safety, transparency, inclusion, and accountability into action.
The New York Times's interactive on what belongs in the trash and what gets recycled
Climate Warriors
Australia"a free interactive game available on Minecraft Education Edition and Minecraft Marketplace, designed to teach children as young as 7 how to protect themselves and their homes from bushfires."
You're the general manager of a large city. Balance ethics and corruption to keep your position and get things done. Whatever happens, don't get caught!
We're working with researchers in the Banded Mongoose Research Project at the University of Exeter to design and build a new online game to understand sociality and cooperation in mongooses, based on their research in Uganda.
캠페이너 인생게임 | 툴킷 (Campaigner Life Game)
Republic of South Korea (Hanguk or Namhan)An IRL game where you try to recruit 1,000 supporters to your campaign
@Stake is a digital multiplayer roleplaying game that fosters creativity and empathy in small group deliberation
From fake news to chaos! How bad are you? Get as many followers as you can.
Get email updates
Helpful Links
Reach Out
A project of
With support from
National Endowment for Democracy
Founding Organization
Civic Hall
Technology partner
Civic Tech Field Guide