Awards

Tidekeeper

Created by Simcoach Games, Tidekeeper is a strategy adventure designed to strengthen practical time-management and scheduling skills. Players explore the Hourglass Isles, plan their days, chart routes and complete time-sensitive tasks while helping local residents. Familiar calendar and scheduling tools are built directly into the experience, encouraging players to experiment with planning strategies in an engaging, low-risk environment.

Mission US: Spirit of a Nation

Created by The WNET Group, Mission US: Spirit of a Nation follows Nicki Seward, a present-day teenager and descendant of the Apalachee people, as she investigates her family and community’s past. Through artifacts and historical imagination, players experience the perspectives of Apalachee young people living before and after Spanish contact, exploring Indigenous persistence, adaptation and the ways history is interpreted and remembered.

Cruise — Operational Excellence Business Simulation

Developed by Guided Comms, Cruise — Operational Excellence Business Simulation places teams in charge of a luxury cruise ship during a simulated four-day Mediterranean voyage. Participants make interconnected decisions involving routes and navigation, guest experience, crew morale, hospitality, safety and profitability while responding to changing operational challenges. The simulation is designed to strengthen strategic thinking, collaboration and decision-making under pressure.

+PlusOut!!

Created by +PlusOut!! STEM Games, +PlusOut!! is a social strategy card game that makes mathematical thinking part of competitive play. Players work with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division while making tactical decisions and trying to outscore their opponents. Designed particularly for elementary learners, the game supports number sense, mental math, flexible mathematical thinking and confidence while keeping the focus on play.

IATA Airport Strategic Management Simulation

The International Air Transport Association’s Airport Strategic Management Simulation puts participants in the role of airport decision-makers balancing short-term performance with long-term growth. Players explore capacity and demand, airport charges, market development, non-aeronautical revenue and operational models while making strategic choices that affect an airport’s future development and financial performance.

Duffer’s Drift

Developed by Centro Alti Studi Difesa, Duffer’s Drift is a browser-based tactical serious game inspired by the classic military learning text The Defence of Duffer’s Drift. Through narrative choices and repeated attempts, players confront questions of reconnaissance, terrain, concealment, fire discipline and command responsibility. Its safe-to-fail structure encourages players to learn through the consequences of their own tactical decisions.

Tidekeeper

Created by Simcoach Games, Tidekeeper uses a strategic adventure to help neurodiverse and neurotypical players practice executive-functioning skills related to scheduling and time management. Players plan their days on the Hourglass Isles, coordinate routes and appointments, complete time-sensitive activities and learn through experimentation with familiar planning tools.

Year of the Cicadas

Created by the Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics / XRPediatrics at Yale, Year of the Cicadas is an immersive VR experience exploring parental grief following the death of a child. Drawing on creator Kimberly Hieftje’s own experience after the loss of her six-year-old son, the project uses interactive moments, personal narrative and immersive sound to invite deeper understanding of grief, memory and meaning-making over time.

Teaching Gender-Affirming Care

Developed at Stanford Medicine, Teaching Gender-Affirming Care is a case-based visual novel that gives learners opportunities to work through simulated encounters with transgender and gender-diverse patients. The experience addresses areas including hormone therapy, surgical planning, family planning and adolescent care, helping clinical and non-clinical learners build knowledge and confidence around gender-affirming primary care.

Cozy River Valley

Developed by the Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University, Cozy River Valley places players in the role of a farm manager making decisions about agricultural production, community needs and environmental sustainability. Across decades of simulated change, players balance surface water, groundwater, weather, markets, land use and water quality while developing a deeper understanding of the interconnected systems that shape water use in agriculture.

The CSI Games

Created at Singapore Management University, The CSI Games transforms introductory statistics into a globe-spanning spy adventure. Students become agents who travel to different locations, investigate statistical mysteries and analyze data against relevant benchmarks. The game gives learners repeated opportunities to apply statistical concepts to increasingly challenging problems while embedding practice within an unfolding narrative.

Benefit Sharing Compass

Developed through a collaboration involving Te Kotahi Research Institute at the University of Waikato and GeoAR, Benefit Sharing Compass is a narrative-driven serious game exploring decisions surrounding digital sequence information, Indigenous data sovereignty and benefit sharing. The experience invites researchers and other stakeholders to consider how scientific and policy choices can affect Indigenous communities and encourages more thoughtful approaches to data governance and equitable benefit sharing.

Uuugh – False Play

Developed by Greater Games E.U., Uuugh – False Play is a serious game designed to help young people recognize manipulation strategies associated with sexualized violence. By placing players in an intentionally uncomfortable perpetrator perspective, the game exposes tactics involving isolation, dependency and emotional manipulation so that players can better identify harmful patterns and protect themselves and others. The game can be played independently or used in facilitated educational settings.

an unplayable game?!

Created by ./badgames.zip, an unplayable game?! is a short puzzle-platformer built around the idea of accessibility itself. The experience deliberately confronts players with barriers that can make a game difficult or impossible to play, encouraging them to think more critically about accessibility settings and inclusive design. Its challenges emphasize problem-solving rather than traditional tests of dexterity.

Blueberry

Developed by MELLOW Games, Blueberry is a story-driven puzzle platformer that takes players through the memories of a woman confronting experiences of trauma across her lifetime. Moving from childhood through adulthood and old age, players explore fragments of memory and identity while navigating themes of family, resilience, forgiveness and the ways people reconstruct their own histories.

Real Vampires

Created by Those Eyes, Real Vampires is a darkly comic narrative game inspired by authentic Slavic vampire folklore and historical accounts. Drawing on research including Łukasz Kozak’s With Stake and Spade, the game allows players to experience events from both human and vampire perspectives, using contrasting mechanics and humor to challenge familiar pop-culture ideas about vampires and reconnect the mythology with its historical roots.

Puzzling Places

Developed by Realities.io, Puzzling Places brings jigsaw puzzling into three-dimensional space. Players assemble detailed miniature environments based on photogrammetry scans of real-world places and objects, combining spatial reasoning with the pleasure of slowly reconstructing culturally and visually rich locations. The VR experience pairs highly detailed 3D models with ambient soundscapes and accessible interaction.

MUDEMverse – Tycoon and Time Travel!

Developed by Melazeta for the Bank of Italy’s Museum of Money, MUDEMverse brings economic and financial history to Roblox. Designed especially for younger audiences, the experience takes players through multiple historical eras while introducing ideas including money, banking, trust, inflation, risk and cyber threats. A museum-rescue storyline connects the educational concepts to exploration and familiar Roblox gameplay.

Mission US: Spirit of a Nation

Created by The WNET Group, Mission US: Spirit of a Nation uses historical role-play to explore the experiences of the Apalachee people before and after European contact. Players investigate artifacts, move between present-day interpretation and historical perspectives, and consider how Indigenous communities responded to profound political, cultural and social change. The experience was developed with historians, archaeologists, tribal members, educators and students.

Virivì e l’ombra della pioggia (Virivì and the Shadow of Rain)

Developed by Whitesock, Virivì and the Shadow of Rain follows ten-year-old Donatella as she discovers that her city is at risk of flooding. Through exploration, puzzles and decisions made during an unfolding weather emergency, players learn about disaster preparedness, responsible behavior and risk reduction. The project draws on established civil-protection and disaster-risk-reduction educational principles.

K12 MathBee

Created by K12, MathBee is a free math-learning game for students in Grades 2–5 that combines arithmetic practice with bubble-shooter gameplay. Students practice operations such as addition, subtraction and multiplication through quick, repeatable challenges and can play in both single-player and multiplayer modes, giving foundational mathematics practice the pace and feedback of a casual game.

+PlusOut!!

Created by +PlusOut!! STEM Games, +PlusOut!! combines strategic card play with mathematics. Players use arithmetic operations as part of tactical decisions and competition, creating repeated opportunities to practice number sense and mental calculation while remaining focused on the social experience of the game.

Program Builder: Peer Mentoring Program Edition

Northwestern University
Stephanie Schuhmacher

Gather-2-Gether

Created as a University of Miami student project, Gather-2-Gether is a cooperative two-player experience designed for parents and children to play together. Players complete puzzles and quests while developing a shared space and farm, using collaborative play to encourage conversation, cooperation and connection across generations.

The Last Voyage of the Picasso

Created at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, The Last Voyage of the Picasso is a narrative-driven XR educational experience exploring how immersive and gamified approaches can spark curiosity and engagement around welding. The project investigates how VR can make a skilled trade more approachable through story, interaction and experiential learning.

Design My City

Harrison High School
Zachary Fischman

Design My City is an educational city-building game designed to teach 5/6th graders how urban planning choices affect a city’s population, quality of life, and economy. The game consists of turn-based gameplay, with scenario cards and a grid to place buildings on. The players make choices about housing, commercial development, parks, and services whilst balancing growth and efficiency. Urban planning concepts such as population, infrastructure, zoning, and economic success are taught. The overall goal is to help kids understand how cities are complex interconnected systems rather than just roads and buildings through interactive, hands-on learning instead of typical instruction. 

Tumor Tactics

Created by student designers Daniel Zhang and Zachary Tou, Tumor Tactics is a strategy card game developed to make cancer biology and treatment more understandable to young people. Its cards and mechanics draw from real oncology concepts, including tumor stages, treatment choices, trade-offs and side effects, translating complex medical ideas into a competitive and approachable tabletop experience.