Abstract:

The roadmap is based on activities and tasks carried by the project partners of the Peace Games (PG) project:
- Piloting of the games identified by the first Review (IO1) in the local schools and educational institutions in the 6 different countries of origin of the partners,
- Organisation of focus group sessions involving game experts and representatives from schools in participating countries to organise an action plan to fill the gaps identified during the pilot phase.

The results from the piloting phase, design workshops and focus groups were assembled in the Roadmap for new peace games action plan” with the aim to to give inspiration and help with the process of designing or adapting games with impact.

In the first phase of the Peace Games (PG) project 120 games were collected, reviewed and classified based on the multidimensional assessment grid with 30 questions. The shortlist of the games is presented in the Games Catalogue on the PG website. From the collected games more than 50% were cooperative games where the participants play together and win together. Almost 30% were collaborative games, where participants work together but there is just one winner or one winning group. The competence selection was based upon the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture [RFCDC].

In the xtensive piloting actions of use of games in different educational settings, games from catalogue were tested in schools, universities and educational institutions in six different european countries (France, Italy, Spain, Malta, Austria, Germany). The aim was to identify which positive impact selected games can have on young people in developing and increasing competences and skills for peace-related democratic culture.

In two rounds of piloting there were over 2000 game play contacts recorded with over 800 students. Based on the feedback obtained by mixed research methods, i.e. player experience was assessed by quantitative survey with 15 questions, at the same time teachers created qualitative observation reports using a template with set of questions. This resulted in a deeper inside of what worked well with the target group and different learning settings, and what were the issues and problems that occurred during the play sessions was gained.

Result of three international focus groups, four game design workshop and international multistakeholder discussion is the PG roadmap tool with the aim to help professional game developers with finding new pathways for developing games for peace education. Secondary target groups are teachers and students that might, with the help of the roadmap tools, develop their creative potential to integrate game development as a creative element of peace education.

References:
[1] D. Crombie, P. Mersch, at al.: „The JamToday Network: The European Learning Hub for Applied-Games for Learning Environments“, in Digital Technology and Organizational Change, Vol. 23, Springer International Publishing, 2018, p. 173–186.
[2] Nicolaidou, I., Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. at al. (2022). Developing Fact Finders: A Mobile Game for Overcoming Intractable Conflicts. Social Science Computer Review
[3] Peace Games Catalogue of Games: http://eiplab.eu/peace-games-catalogue-and-info
[4] Peace Games Project web site http://eiplab.eu/peace-games
[5] Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC)
https://www.coe.int/en/web/reference-framework-of-competences-for-democratic-culture

Keywords:

Game development, peace games, roadmap, applied games, serious games.