transformative game design Archives

A great game can make people laugh, solve problems, take risks, collaborate, imagine, and even feel something deeply. In a museum, it might help visitors step into the role of an archaeologist, a conservationist, a community elder, or a future citizen. In a classroom, it can help students ask important questions instead of just memorizing facts. In therapy or trauma-informed work, it could give participants enough distance to explore something hard through story. In live-action roleplay (larp), it might be a practice space for someone to try on a new way of being.

But the game itself is only part of the transformational experience because what happens after play is where the opportunity to change begins to settle into the player’s real life. That is the space where people ask: What happened? Why did it matter? What did I notice about myself? What might I do differently next time?

If you truly want your game to inspire change, you need to think about what happens AFTER the game is done. So the best way to design transformative games is with the ending in mind. Because the ending opens the path between the game world and the real world.

Play = Experience. Debrief = Meaning.

Games are powerful because they create a lived experience. Players can actually practice the ideas of teamwork, courage, climate change, cultural heritage, empathy, conflict, or resilience inside of a shared story.

For a long time, research on experiential learning has emphasized that people learn more deeply when they are able to connect what they did with what it means and how it applies to their own lives (Johns et al., 2017). In other words, an activity does not automatically become learning just because people are active or “immersed”… the reflection time needs to be part of the actual design.

In transformative role-playing game design, debriefing and integration are treated as core parts of the experience. Bowman, Diakolambrianou, and Brind (2024) describe transformative role-playing games as including safety, workshops, gameplay, debriefing, and integration practices as part of the design model. Bowman, Brind, and Hugaas (2025) go even further in implementation guidance, emphasizing that what happens after the game can be just as important to transformation as the play itself.

For museum teams, educators, therapists, and larp designers, that is a vital shift. It means the end of the activity should be treated as an integral part of the experience and not just chatting about “what did you like the best?” Without the debrief all you have, at best, is a cool experience. With it, you can tip the scale into at least a small amount of transformation.

Why “fun” is not enough

A game can be fun and still fail to transfer. A visitor might enjoy solving a puzzle about ocean conservation, but never connect the game to choices in their community. Or a student might win a classroom simulation, but miss the social or ethical lesson. A therapy participant might play a character who finds courage, but never explores how they can own that same courage. And a larper might have an intense emotional experience, but leave without language, support, or next steps for making sense of the moment. All of this doesn’t mean the game failed… It just means the game needs a bridge. And debrief is that bridge.

A good debrief helps people name the experience, notice patterns, process emotion, and translate the event into insight. For transformative games, the goal is to answer the deeper questions like:

- What did you experience?
- What did you feel?
- What changed during the story/activity?
- What did your choices reveal?
- What does this have to do with the world outside the game?

These questions (posed in a supportive environment) can help players turn an activity into meaning.

The debrief can transfer the experience

Debriefing has practical value in many fields. In a 2025 interprofessional healthcare simulation study, a structured Reflective Learning Conversation debriefing model was associated with stronger clinical reasoning, clinical judgment, critical thinking, and self-efficacy (Almomani et al., 2025). In experiential mental health education, debriefs help learners describe and analyze what happened, identify lessons, and connect those lessons to the real world and their own lives (Johns et al., 2017).

For role-playing games, debriefing can do even more because players are often emerging from identity-based play. They may have spoken as a character, made decisions as a character, felt emotions through a character, or interacted with other players through fictional relationships. That kind of play can be joyful, moving, confusing, empowering, or emotionally complicated.

A thoughtful debrief helps players return to themselves. It can create space for emotion without letting the loudest voices take over. It can also help players distinguish between character conflict and player relationship (vital for retaining friendships). And it can help a group notice how the fictional experience touched on real questions of trust, responsibility, culture, power, care, or belonging.

For larpers, this (hopefully) sounds familiar. For museums, it may feel like a missing tool if they are not already incorporating it in some lighter fashion. For therapists, it may resemble guided reflection, group processing, or narrative integration. The language changes by the field but the heart of the practice is the same: people need support making sense of what they just lived through.

Museums need this more than ever

Museums have come a long way from being no more than places where information is displayed. Now, they are often social, emotional, and participatory learning spaces. Recent work on museum game-based learning suggests that a constructivist design framework built around self-determination, contextualization, social interaction, knowledge construction, meaning-making, and immediate feedback (Li & Zhang, 2025) for better comprehension.

Another recent museum study tested a gamified learning activity using goals, stories, and role-playing with 66 third-grade students. The gamified group did not score significantly higher on the objective knowledge test, but interviews and drawing data suggested that students paid more attention to craft details, expressed more admiration for craftspeople, and showed reduced age-based stereotypes about craftspeople (Xu et al., 2024). Taken together, the museum game-based learning literature shows why participatory experiences matter, while debriefing research helps explain how those experiences can be translated into learning, reflection, and future action.

That is exciting but it also raises a design challenge. When a museum game invites visitors to decide, act, and care, the experience should not just end with “Congratulations, you completed the quest.” That may be satisfying, but it can also leave the deepest learning untouched. I like to say that when you have an immersive experience at a museum and you don’t provide a debrief, it’s like winning a poker game and walking away from the table, leaving all of the chips behind. You won at providing a cool experience… but you left your patron alone to figure out what it all means – not to the world – but to them as individuals with distinctly different priorities.

A stronger ending might ask:

- What did you notice about the choices people had to make?
- Whose perspective did you understand differently?
- What part of this story connects to your own community?
- What is one action you could take after leaving the museum?
- What stands in your way of taking that action?

For outreach programs, this is especially important. If the goal is community engagement, cultural connection, conservation action, social-emotional learning, or civic imagination, then visitors need a solid debrief to help carry the experience beyond the exhibit.

Don’t let the takeaway stay inside the game.

A simple debrief framework

A transformative debrief does not need to be long or unnecessarily complicated. In fact, a short, well-designed debrief is often better than a long one with less focus.

Here is a simple five-part structure that we use that can work across museums, classrooms, therapeutic programs, camps, and larps.

1. Return

Help participants leave the game world and return to themselves.

For role-playing or therapeutic games, this might mean taking off a costume piece, putting down a prop, saying the character’s name and then their own name, or simply taking a breath together. For museum games, it could mean stepping out of the exhibit space and gathering in a quieter area. For classroom games, it can mean closing the fictional scenario before discussion begins.

The goal is to mark the transition: the story has ended, and now we are reflecting as ourselves.

2. Reflect

Ask what happened. Keep this stage simple by just inviting participants to describe moments, choices, surprises, or emotions without jumping immediately to interpretation.

Useful prompts include:

- - - What moment stands out to you?
    - What choice felt important?
    - What surprised you?
    - What was easy or difficult?

This is deceptively important because it helps people organize the experience before they analyze it.

3. Relate

Connect the game to real ideas, relationships, or systems.

This is where the learning deepens. The facilitator can guide the group towards the purpose of the experience, whether that purpose is empathy, cultural understanding, teamwork, climate action, conflict resolution, resilience, or historical perspective.

Useful prompts include:

- - - Where have you seen something like this outside the game?
    - What did the game help you understand differently?
    - Who had power in the story?
    - Who had limited choices?
    - What did collaboration make possible?

For therapists and trauma-informed facilitators, this stage should be handled with care. Participants may need options to pass, reflect privately, or engage through creative expression instead of direct verbal sharing. It’s also possible to simply allow the participant to speak about this through the lens of their character – so that they don’t have to be vulnerable themselves. IE. “My character had a moment when they realized…”. Allowing them to speak about their character can reveal their own feelings without the vulnerability of transparency.

4. Rehearse

Help participants imagine future action.

Transformation becomes more likely when people identify their next step. This does not need to be a big change… a small next step can be powerful for sparking change. Keep in mind that if the participant is hesitant to talk about themselves in this context it is perfectly acceptable for them to answer for their character instead.

Useful prompts include:

- - - What is one thing you might try differently next time?
    - What is one question you want to keep thinking about?
    - What is one action you could take this week?
    - What is one conversation you want to have?

For a museum, this could connect to a take-home card, family conversation prompt, volunteer opportunity, school resources, or a community project. For a classroom, it might lead to a writing assignment or group project. And for therapy or resilience work, it can connect to coping strategies, support networks, or strengths that the participant wants to practice.

5. Re-enter

This is where you help participants return to ordinary life (with care).

After intense play, some people want to talk while others may need to be quiet or just move around. And some need food, water, rest, or creative expression. Integration practices can include:

- - - Journaling or drawing
    - talking with a trusted person
    - making art or writing an epilogue
    - revisiting an exhibit
    - or choosing one small real-world action

This stage reminds participants that the experience does not have to disappear when the game ends and that they have support for exploring their new ideas.

Design the ending before you run the beginning

One of the most common mistakes in educational and transformative game design is spending all the design energy on the activity itself. Designers work hard to make sure the puzzle is solid, the props are well made, the roles are all written out, and the story is exciting.

And the debrief? It’s often improvised in the final five minutes.

So instead, try to design backwards.

Ask:

- What do we want participants to carry with them?
- What emotions might come up?
- What misconceptions might need to be addressed?
- What real-world action or reflection do we want to support?
- What kind of debrief fits the age, setting, culture, and needs of this group?

A group of young children may need an embodied debrief, such as choosing a movement that shows how their character felt. A museum family program might need three short questions on a take-home card. A therapy group could need a carefully facilitated process with strong emotional boundaries. And a larp might need structured sharing, de-roling, and optional follow-up aftercare.

There is no single perfect debrief. There is only the debrief that fits the purpose, the people, and the context.

The game ends. The transformation begins.

Transformative games are powerful because they let people experience a question from the inside their own mind.

These questions can range from:

- What does courage feel like?
- What does cooperation require?
- What happens when resources are scarce?
- What does it mean to care for a place?
- How do stories shape identity?
- What do we owe each other?

The debrief helps participants work with those questions long enough for them to make a difference.

The most important part of a transformative game may happen after play because that is when the player gets to ask: What part of this story am I taking with me? And what part of myself am I leaving behind?

References

Almomani, E., Tobin, J., Fernandes, S., Sullivan, J., Saadeh, O., Mustafa, E., Pattison, N., & Alinier, G. (2025). A reflective learning conversation debriefing model for interprofessional simulation based education. BMC Medical Education, 25, Article 1434. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-025-07765-9

Bowman, S. L., Brind, S., & Hugaas, K. H. (2025). Implementing transformative role-playing games. Uppsala University Publications. https://doi.org/10.33063/23xd2197

Bowman, S. L., Diakolambrianou, E., & Brind, S. (Eds.). (2024). Transformative role-playing game design. Uppsala University Publications. https://doi.org/10.33063/23xd2197

Johns, J. A., Moyer, M. T., & Gasque, L. M. (2017). Planning and facilitating debriefs of experiential learning activities in skills-based health education. Journal of Health Education Teaching, 8(1), 61–76. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1163872.pdf

Li, H., & Zhang, M. (2025). Museum game-based learning: Innovative approaches from a constructivist perspective. Frontiers in Education, 10, Article 1576207. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1576207

Xu, W., Xing, Q.-W., Yu, Y., & Zhao, L.-Y. (2024). Exploring the influence of gamified learning on museum visitors’ knowledge and career awareness with a mixed research approach. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11, Article 1055. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03583-4

Guardian Adventures provides consulting and transformative design for therapeutic centers, museum and science centers, summer camps, amusement & attraction industries, and more.

A Beginner’s Guide to Two Different Paths Toward Healing

When most people think of mental health support, they picture talk therapy where a client, a clinician, and a deep discussion helped someone better understand their thoughts, emotions, relationships, and patterns. Psychotherapy is a well-established, evidence-based practice, and major professional organizations describe it as a collaborative treatment that can help people improve functioning, develop healthier coping strategies, and increase well-being.[1]

Therapeutic roleplaying games provide a different path into some of this same work.[2] The research base for tabletop and live-action roleplay is still growing, but recent and early studies suggest that structured roleplaying experiences may support outcomes related to mood, self-concept, communication, social skills, and engagement when they are used intentionally and with appropriate facilitation.[2][3]

I believe that the most useful question is not which one is better but what each approach makes possible for different people, in different settings, and at different moments in their healing process.

Healing Through Talking

Traditional talk therapy is built on reflection, relationship, and meaning-making. Clients are invited to describe what they are carrying, notice patterns, question assumptions, process difficult experiences, and make sense of what is happening in their lives with the support of a trained professional.[1]

Insights drive this process. Being able to name what is happening inside you is often an important step towards change. Most evidence-based approaches rely on helping clients identify emotional triggers and relational dynamics more clearly so they can respond differently over time.[1]

Talk therapy can offer language for experiences that feel confusing or overwhelming. It can help someone feel seen. And it can help them connect the dots so they begin to understand why they keep getting stuck or caught in a limiting cycle of behavior. That understanding can change everything.

Healing Through Doing

Therapeutic roleplaying games tend to lean more heavily on experience. Instead of only talking about boundaries, trust, asking for help, or managing conflict, players may be invited to practice those things in action. They make choices, solve problems, and respond to pressure. They try new ways of being in a structured space that provides the opportunity for reflection in a controlled environment.[2][3]

This overlaps with behavioral rehearsal, which is already a recognized method in cognitive and behavioral traditions. In plain language, behavioral rehearsal means practicing a skill rather than only discussing it.[4] Role-play has long been used in psychotherapy and skills training for this reason, and recent publications have explicitly connected larp methods with CBT-oriented skill development.[4][5]

My sense is that this is one of the clearest differences between the two approaches. Talk therapy often helps people understand themselves. Therapeutic games often help people practice themselves differently. Both of these approaches matter.

Distance Can Make Honesty Easier

In talk therapy, clients usually speak directly as themselves. That directness can be deeply valuable. It can also feel intense, especially when someone feels ashamed, guarded, overwhelmed, or simply does not yet have the words.[1]

Therapeutic roleplay adds a layer of distance. A player can speak as a healer, a rebel captain, an investigator, or a survivor in a fictional world. Research in role-playing studies has described part of this effect as the alibi of fiction. The imagined role creates enough distance for a person to explore emotionally charged material more safely while still engaging it in a meaningful way.[6]

That does not make the experience less real. In many cases, it makes honesty more accessible.[6] Sometimes people can speak through a character before they are ready to speak fully as themselves. The fiction becomes a bridge. It offers cover, but not disconnection.

And sometimes the boundary between player and character becomes more porous than it first appears. In role-playing studies, this is often called bleed. Bleed refers to feelings, values, physical states, or insights moving between player and character in either direction. A player’s fear may shape how a character responds. And a character’s courage may linger within the player after the game ends.[7]

I suspect this is one reason therapeutic games can stay with people so powerfully. The story may be fictional, but the emotional learning is not.

Safety Is Primary

A game does not become therapeutic just because it includes roleplay, emotion, or personal themes. In any therapeutic game, the healing potential comes not only from the play itself, but from the container around the play (or framing the game). This is how the experience is framed and participants are prepared. It includes how safety is maintained during the session and how the experience is processed afterward.[2][8]

Before the game even begins, participants need orientation and calibration. In roleplay communities, calibration refers to the practices that help people understand the tone, boundaries, intensity, and expectations of play so they can make informed choices about how to engage. Safety and calibration tools are described in larp research as fundamental design tools for building cultures of care and trust, especially when players are being invited to risk vulnerability or engage in emotionally charged material.[11][12]

This preparation can include discussing themes, players identifying their own limits, clarifying how consent works, setting expectations for emotional intensity (with opt-out signals), introducing safety tools, and making it clear that players can slow down, pause, redirect, or step out if needed.[8][11][12] In other words, the therapeutic value does not begin at the first dramatic scene. It begins in the design of the experience and in the participant’s sense of agency and control before play starts.[8][11]

During the game, facilitation still matters. A therapeutic game is not just a story unfolding on its own. It requires active attention to pacing, participant regulation, interpersonal dynamics, and signs that someone may need more support, more distance, or a different level of engagement.[2][10] Role-playing formats can support collaboration, communication, and real-time work on coping skills, but that is part of why they require thoughtful guidance rather than simple entertainment talent.[10]

And what happens after the game is vitally important.

Debrief is where participants step out of the fictional frame, reflect on what happened, identify what felt meaningful, and begin connecting the experience back to real life. Research on debriefing more broadly shows that effective debriefs can improve learning, integration, and team functioning.[13] For therapeutic games, that means debrief should be thoughtful, structured, voluntary, and appropriate to the participants and context.[8][14]

Even a meaningful experience can leave people feeling emotionally raw afterward. In larp communities, this is often called a post-larp drop: A temporary emotional letdown that can include sadness, flatness, irritability, disorientation, or difficulty returning to ordinary life after a powerful shared experience. That is one reason aftercare and re-entry support matter. A therapeutic game is not finished when the final scene ends. In many ways, that is when the integration begins.[14]

In my view, this is where therapeutic games are often misunderstood. People sometimes imagine that the game itself is doing the therapeutic work (especially in digital therapeutics). More often, the game is the vehicle. The deeper work happens in the design, the framing, the facilitation, the calibration, the debrief, and the care taken in helping participants return to themselves afterward. Notice how much of that work is built on trusting relationships as opposed to the game itself.

Impact of the Group

Many therapeutic roleplaying games happen in groups, which forms the nature of the experience in important ways.[3][9] Group psychotherapy literature has long identified factors such as universality, group cohesion, altruism, and interpersonal learning as part of what makes groups healing. Universality is the realization that you are not alone. Interpersonal learning is what happens when people receive real-time feedback about how they show up with others. Group cohesion is the felt sense that the group is safe enough and connected enough to matter.[9]

Roleplaying games purposefully creates conditions where those dynamics can emerge. Players cooperate, negotiate, take risks, offer support, and respond to each other in the moment.[3][10] They do not just talk about relationships. They experience them through both action and discussion.

Recent APA reporting on role-playing games in therapy notes that these formats can support collaboration, communication, conflict management, and real-time work on symptoms and coping skills.[10]

I believe that this group dimension is one reason therapeutic games can be especially powerful for people who not only need insight, but also need practice being with other people in a new way. This makes me wonder if this might be the reason so many neurodiverse people seek out roleplaying games as a way to practice social connection.

Evidence So Far

The strongest conclusion the current research supports is promising but needs more investigation.[2][3][10] A recent scoping review found that prior research points to potential psychological benefits of tabletop role-playing games, while also noting the need for more rigorous studies, broader cultural representation (especially this), and clearer intervention standards.[2]

A 2024 repeated-measures community study of Dungeons & Dragons found significant decreases in depression, stress, and anxiety, along with increases in self-esteem and self-efficacy over the study period.[3] At the same time, it was a small study, and a larger, more diverse research base is still needed.[2][3]

The American Psychological Association’s 2025 reporting on psychologists using tabletop role-playing games in treatment reached a similarly cautious conclusion. The modality appears promising for concerns such as anxiety, depression, trauma, and ADHD, but the research is still developing.[10]

So I think the responsible conclusion isn’t that therapeutic games will replace traditional therapy… but that they are emerging as a credible, structured, relational, and experiential tool that can complement or extend therapeutic work for some clients.[2][3][10]

Different Tools for Different Moments

In sum, traditional talk therapy offers language, reflection, interpretation, and a focused clinical relationship.[1] Therapeutic roleplaying games offer rehearsal, embodiment, symbolic distance, collaborative problem-solving, and social learning.[2][5][6]

These are complementing categories. In practice, many clinicians already blend discussion, role-play, narrative work, and experiential methods instead of relying on a single mode of engagement.[5][6][10]

My impression is that some clients need the directness of talk therapy. Much can be covered in 45 minutes if this is the method for you. Others seem to access honesty, agency, and growth more easily when there is a story, a role, or a game structure carrying part of the emotional weight. This often requires more time investment, but the outcomes can be more impactful for the latter demographic.

Healing is rarely one-size-fits-all. Sometimes it begins in conversation and sometimes it begins in play.

——————–

Sources

[1] American Psychological Association, “Understanding Psychotherapy and How It Works,” updated December 12, 2023.

[2] Livia Yuliawati, Putri Ayu Puspieta Wardhani, and Joo Hou Ng, “A Scoping Review of Tabletop Role-Playing Game (TTRPG) as Psychological Intervention: Potential Benefits and Future Directions,” Psychology Research and Behavior Management 17 (2024): 2885 to 2903, DOI: 10.2147/PRBM.S466664.

[3] Ashley Abramson, “Improving Treatment with Role-Playing Games,” Monitor on Psychology 56, no. 3, April 1, 2025. This APA article summarizes current clinical use and cites emerging evidence, including group-therapy applications and recent mental health findings.

[4] Rinad S. Beidas, Wendi Cross, and Shannon Dorsey, “Show Me, Don’t Tell Me: Behavioral Rehearsal as a Training and Analogue Fidelity Tool,” Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 21, no. 1 (2014): 1 to 11, DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpra.2013.04.002.

[5] Lennart Bartenstein, “Live Action Role Playing (Larp) in Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy: A Case Study,” International Journal of Role-Playing 15 (2024): 92 to 126.

[6] Elektra Diakolambrianou and Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Dual Consciousness: What Psychology and Counseling Theories Can Teach and Learn Regarding Identity and the Role-Playing Game Experience,” Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM 2, no. 2 (2023) Article 4. This source is directly associated with the “alibi of fiction” framing in role-playing scholarship.

[7] Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, “Bleed and Identity: A Conceptual Model of Bleed and How Bleed-Out from Role-Playing Games Can Affect a Player’s Sense of Self,” International Journal of Role-Playing 15 (2024): 9 to 35

[8] SAMHSA, trauma-informed care guidance describing principles such as safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration, empowerment, and choice.

[9] Irvin D. Yalom and Molyn Leszcz, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. A group therapy framework identifying therapeutic factors such as universality, altruism, interpersonal learning, and group cohesion.

[10] Ashley Abramson, “Improving Treatment with Role-Playing Games,” American Psychological Association, April 1, 2025. Current clinician practice descriptions and the kinds of therapeutic targets psychologists are exploring with TTRPGs.

11] Maury Brown, “Safety and Calibration Design Tools and Their Uses,” Nordic Larp (January 24, 2018). Brown describes safety and calibration techniques as core design tools that help players access larp and create stories together, and as fundamental to building cultures of care and trust.

[12] Sarah Lynne Bowman and Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, “Philosophies of Psychological Safety in Analog Role-playing Game Discourses,” International Journal of Role-Playing 16 (2025). This article analyzes safety, consent, calibration, and responsibility across analog role-playing discussions.

[13] Joseph A. Allen et al, “Debriefs: Teams Learning From Doing in Contexts,” American Psychologist 77, no. 4 (2022): 504-516. Describes how debriefs can support reflection, learning, and performance when they are well designed and appropriately facilitated.

[14] Sarah Lynne Bowman, “Post-larp Depression,” Nordic Larp (January 19, 2015). Bowman describes the emotional difficulty some players experience when returning to everyday life after an intense larp. “Post-larp drop” is often used as a gentler way to describe the same phenomenon.

What if a 20 minute game could create measurable change months later?

I recently joined Dave Eng of University XP for a conversation on Gamification for Emotional Engagement and the deeper discipline of Transformative Game Design. The episode explores how games can be intentionally structured to support emotional engagement, reflection, and sustained shifts in behavior or perspective. Below are a few quotes from the talk.

Games as Structured Play

“Games are structured play. Within that structure, we can create safe exploration.”

Structure creates clarity. Clarity creates psychological safety. Within well designed boundaries, participants can explore difficult topics with agency and control. Roleplay provides distance. Calibration tools provide consent. Clear expectations provide trust.

When those elements are present, meaningful exploration becomes possible.

Designing for Transformation

“A well designed game can be educational. The debrief is where transformation happens.”

Frame the game. Play the game. Debrief the game. That is what creates transformation.

Transformative Game Design requires intentional sequencing. Framing prepares participants for emotional engagement. Play creates embodied experience. Debrief supports processing, integration, and application.

This architecture turns experience into insight and insight into action.

Measuring What Matters

“Transformative game design aims for sustained, measurable change in behavior or perspective.”

“It is not enough for a game to feel powerful. Three months later, did behavior actually change?”

Impact can be measured. Surveys, follow up interviews, and longitudinal data reveal whether shifts endure. Often the movement is subtle. Most transformations are micro needle shifts. Small changes that compound over time into new habits, conversations, and choices.

In one research study, “The game itself became the alibi for a difficult conversation.”

Because “Games open discussions that nothing else can.”

The experience provided language, distance, and courage. That is design at work.

Watch or Listen

🎧 Audio Podcast
http://universityxp.com/podcast/158

🎥 Video with Slide Deck
http://universityxp.com/video/158

If you design for learning, civic dialogue, leadership, mental health, or cultural bridge building, this episode offers both practical tools and a research grounded framework for impact.

Executive Summary

Trauma is a global public health and economic challenge. In the United States alone, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) costs an estimated $232 billion annually, or $19,630 per affected person per year (Davis et al. 2022). These costs stem from reduced workforce participation, absenteeism, and increased healthcare expenditures. Beyond economics, trauma undermines what researchers term Brain Capital, the collective cognitive, emotional, and social resources that drive societal progress (Smith et al. 2021).

Transformative games (structured, role-play–based experiences designed for healing and learning) offer a scalable, localized, and affordable solution. Evidence shows that role-play lowers psychological barriers, creates safety through the alibi effect, and fosters transfer of insights from game worlds into real life (Bowman and Eriksen 2023). This dual mechanism allows survivors to reframe narratives, process trauma, and re-engage with their communities.

Why Games? The Evidence Base

Therapeutic impact: Stepping into a fictional character reduces defenses and facilitates emotional processing (Bowman 2024).
Scalable and localized: Transformative games can be facilitated by local practitioners with minimal infrastructure, ensuring cultural relevance and sustainability.
Transferable skills: Practicing roles in a fictional frame supports identity exploration and builds coping strategies (Bowman 2024).
Economic returns: Faster trauma recovery reduces healthcare costs, improves workforce stability, and strengthens community participation (Davis et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2021).

Alignment with UN Priorities

Transformative games directly support 12 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including:

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being – accessible trauma recovery.
SDG 4: Quality Education – immersive learning methods increase engagement and equity.
SDG 5: Gender Equality – role-play fosters empathy and inclusion.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth – reduction in trauma can positively impact economic growth
SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure – reduction in trauma can create the brain health for innovation
SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities – provides accessible mental health solution
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities – providing community training for mental health and education
SDG 13: Climate Action – transformative education programs inspire action
SDG 14: Life Below Water – ocean sciences education for conservation
SDG 15: Life On Land – earth sciences education for conservation
SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions – community storytelling strengthens social cohesion.
SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals – training local facilitators allow for cultural adaptation of programs

(Full UN SDG text: United Nations 2015)

Policy Recommendations

Integrate Transformative Games into Post-Crisis Recovery
Deploy trained facilitators in displacement and post-disaster contexts. Survivors can process trauma safely, while communities rebuild faster with healthier, more engaged citizens.
Invest in Local Capacity Building
Prioritize training of community-based facilitators rather than external experts. This ensures cultural grounding, sustainability, and local ownership.
Support Research and Implementation Pilots
Fund pilot programs to measure outcomes on health, education, and workforce participation. Demonstrated ROI will strengthen the case for larger-scale adoption.
Leverage Games for Cross-Sector Impact
Extend beyond trauma recovery to STEM education, cultural bridge-building, and resilience training, amplifying returns across multiple SDGs.

Call to Action

Transformative games are not entertainment. They are development tools that heal, connect, and unlock human potential. With relatively low investment, governments, UN agencies, and financial institutions can deploy transformative games to strengthen Brain Capital, reduce long-term costs of trauma, and accelerate progress toward the SDGs.

The time to act is now: By embedding transformative games into recovery, education, and cultural programs, policymakers can catalyze scalable, localized, and sustainable change.

Downloadable PDF of UN Policy Brief: Transformative Games for Trauma Recovery and Global Development

References

Bowman, S.L., Diakolambrianou, E., Brind, S. (Eds). 2024. Transformative role-playing game design. Uppsala University Library. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/98272
Davis, Lori L., John C. Williams, Mark H. Pollack, et al. 2022. “The Economic Burden of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the United States From a Societal Perspective.” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 83 (3): 21m14134. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35485933/
Smith, Eric, Harris A. Eyre, Michael Berk, Thomas J. Insel, and Helena Chmura Kraemer. 2021. “A Brain Capital Grand Strategy: Toward Economic Reimagination.” Molecular Psychiatry 26 (1): 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-020-00918-w
United Nations. 2015. Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda

We live in a time when AI is often framed as the answer to loneliness, anxiety, even trauma. “AI will listen.” “AI will care.” “AI will be your friend.”

But what if that’s not the right role?

What if AI isn’t meant to be the solution but the alibi?

In the field of Transformative Game Design, the word “alibi” is an established term that refers to a character that the player embodies in a roleplaying game… providing a safe space to different emotions and perspectives through the character and the scenario. In this context, Alibi is a safe space and safe interaction for practice. It’s a place to begin saying what’s hard to say. A bridge back to connection with others, built on growing trust with your own skills, self-awareness, and choice.

The Role of AI as Alibi

There are many reasons people stay silent: Fear of judgment, past trauma, or simply not knowing where (or how) to begin. When this happens, we often need something low-risk. A place to explore our thoughts before we speak them out loud. A space where we can rehearse the words we’ve never been able to say. It’s a conversation practice that gives you the “undo” option where you can “beta test” your thoughts.

This is where AI as Alibi lives.

This kind of AI is trained not just on language models, but on listening models. It knows when to pause, when not to offer advice, and when to gently suggest that what you’re sharing might be too important, too complex, or too human for an algorithm to hold alone. It doesn’t diagnose. It doesn’t try to fix. It doesn’t pretend to know what’s best.

But it does help you find the words.

It gives you a space to rehearse hard conversations. It helps you think through who in your life feels safe enough to talk to. It might even help you ascertain the possibility that there isn’t anyone in your circle that has the skillset for a healthy connection – and provide you with resources to organizations that can help.

When you’re ready it can remind you that you don’t have to do it alone.

Growth Through Boundaries: A Transformative Design Approach

At the heart of this is transformative design. Not transformation through fantasy or escapism, but through a gradual, supported shift in how we see ourselves and what we believe we’re capable of.

AI as Alibi isn’t just about “processing emotions.” It’s about creating conditions where users can:

Identify and reframe internal narratives
Recognize patterns of avoidance or fear
Practice the risk of vulnerability in a low-stakes environment
Move from passive introspection to active connection

This is the architecture of transformation, which is framing experiences so users can feel safe enough to reflect, empowered enough to act, and supported enough to grow.

Done well, this kind of interaction can cause lasting change not because the AI is wise, but because it’s smart enough to know its limits.

What AI Should Never Be

There’s a growing risk in AI that’s “too helpful.” When AI is designed to mimic friendship, to validate every feeling without context, or to simulate unconditional presence, it can quietly become a replacement for real human connection.

That’s not just unethical. It’s dangerous.

A trauma-informed AI must be trained not to overreach. It must resist the temptation to play the hero. That means avoiding emotional language that suggests attachment (“I’ll always be here,” “You can trust me”), and instead modeling healthy boundaries:

“That sounds like something worth talking about with someone who knows you well.”
“I’m here to help you sort through your thoughts, but I’m not a therapist.”
“You’re not alone. Would you like help thinking about who to talk to?”

This reframing encourages real connection, not digital dependence.

Designing AI That Knows When to Step Aside

To play this role well, AI needs more than technical training. It needs design intention so that it understand that its purpose is not to be the destination, but the bridge.

That means:

Identifying signs of distress or trauma disclosure and shifting into a safety-first mode
Responding with pause and redirection, rather than escalating false intimacy
Championing agency, by helping users make decisions rather than giving them
Offering structured reflection, so the user can track their emotional patterns over time

AI as Alibi becomes part of a larger transformative arc. It’s playing the role of support instead of savior. This way, the AI isn’t replacing human contact, but by gently guiding people back toward it when they’re ready.

From Isolation to Identity Shift

When someone practices speaking their truth (on their own terms, and at their own pace) they’re doing more than processing. They’re rewriting their story. They’re deciding they are worthy of being heard. They’re transforming.

This is where transformative design can meet technology: Not by simulating a relationship, but by gently cultivating the confidence to seek real ones. Not by fixing people, but by helping them imagine what connection might feel like again.

And that is how AI becomes not a substitute…

…but an alibi.

Guardian Adventures provides consulting and transformative design for therapeutic centers, museum and science centers, summer camps, amusement & attraction industries, and more.

There is a difference between Remarkable and Transformative Serious Games.

There’s a growing number of serious games (games designed to teach, heal, and to build empathy). Many of them are remarkable. They’re engaging. Immersive. Memorable. They might even leave players in awe of the experience. But being remarkable isn’t the same as being transformative. And for the kind of impact many of these games are aiming for, such as shifts in behavior, mindset, or cross-cultural understanding, remarkable simply isn’t enough.

Remarkable experiences are the ones we talk about at dinner. They leave a strong impression. They make us feel. But those feelings often fade. A transformative experience, on the other hand, is one that sticks with us. It alters our perspective in a sustained and prolonged way. An experience like this is the difference between remembering something fondly… and changing how you move through the world because of it. In the context of serious games, this is the gap we can close.

One of the primary reasons serious games or experiences fall short of real transformation is framing (or rather, the lack of it). Too often, designers rely on the content like a strong story, and mechanics to do the heavy lifting. These are certainly important. Just don’t assume that if a game is built around important topics like trauma, anxiety, or cultural identity, the impact will automatically happen.

Framing is what transforms a good experience into a life-changing one.

Framing begins before the game. It prepares the participant to bring their own lived experience into the space and sets expectations about how personal growth might take place. It continues during the experience, reinforcing the metaphor and giving language to what’s unfolding. And most importantly, it includes the after. This is the part so many games miss: the debrief, the reflection, the integration. Without it, insights fade and players move on. With it, they return months later still rethinking a belief or behavior they once took for granted.

Transformative games can and should be used across sectors like classrooms, therapeutic facilities, and conflict zones. They can address trauma, build resilience, support people living with anxiety, or help foster understanding between displaced communities and host cultures. But transformation doesn’t come from mechanics and story alone – no matter how immersive they seem. It comes from meaningful design choices that recognize the player as an agent of change in their own life, not just a character in a story.

So, the next time you design a game to have a strong impact, you have to ask: Are we aiming to be memorable or are we setting the stage for something more enduring? Are we designing for awe or are we designing for change?

Because the difference between remarkable and transformative is not about complexity or length. It’s about intentional framing. And it’s time we start building serious games seriously.

Guardian Adventures provides consulting and transformative design for therapeutic centers, museum and science centers, summer camps, amusement & attraction industries, and more.

There’s a quiet assumption in many serious (educational or therapeutic) digital games that impact will happen on its own if the game is “immersive” enough. That if players are engaged enough, the lesson will stick. But those of us who work in transformative design know:

In serious games, transformation rarely happens by accident. It happens through careful framing, incorporating lived experience, and reflection.

Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) designers have been crafting meaningful experiences for decades. We’ve learned that the power of roleplay doesn’t lie in the story alone… it lies in how we invite players into it, how we guide them through it, and how we help them make sense of what they experienced once it’s over. That structure (before, during, and after) is where the real magic lives.

Transformative Digital Serious Game Example

Imagine a digital serious game that is designed with this structure in mind. Instead of selecting an avatar where (at most) the player chooses what the avatar is wearing and what they look like, the player instead chooses a character with a detailed backstory from an array of pre-written options they paste together. This character can have real-life emotional challenges like anxiety, abandonment, or fear of failure. But here’s the twist: the player doesn’t play that character. They care for them. Like a conscience, a mentor, or a guiding voice, the player helps that character navigate the story with compassion and insight.

This design reframes the player’s role. They’re not solving puzzles for points, they’re modeling emotional resilience. They’re learning strategies not in spite of the narrative, but through it. And as they guide their character, the transfer between player and story deepens. That’s what we call bleed: When our in-game experiences transfer into our out-of-game life (and vice versa) allowing for a transformative outcome.

And just like in a well-run LARP, the experience ends with debrief. But it’s not an external experience that breaks the flow of the game. It’s an in-game experience like a quiet scene where the character reflects on what they’ve been through and looks ahead and talks with the player about how they have grown. That reflection loop matters. It’s what turns the game time into a transformative experience for the player.

This is just an example. There are any number of other options that can be integrated into a game to help frame it for measurable outcomes. If serious game companies want to build experiences that truly transform, they need to stop thinking only in terms of achievement and start thinking in terms of care. Care for the story, care for the character, and most importantly, care for the player’s personal journey beyond the game. And to get there, they might want to reach out to a transformative designer. Change is what we do for a living.

Guardian Adventures provides consulting and transformative design for museum and science centers, summer camps, amusement & attraction industries, and more.

…and why those lenses support innovation.

All designers seek an elegant solution to a significant problem. Elegant, in this sense, means a solution that isn’t complex and addresses each of the objectives efficiently and effectively.

When taking on a project, especially one with a transformative objective, it’s important to bring in perspectives from various fields and lived experiences. Each expert view not only deepens our understanding but also improves how the project unfolds, making sure it’s both accessible and engaging. But more, I posit that having a wide range of perspectives (people from very different fields or cultures) is what makes your project truly innovative and approachable. They will ask questions and make suggestions that will prevent many iterations of re-design because they are not seeing the project through the sometimes myopic viewpoint of a singular solution.

I’d like to acknowledge Upsalla University, in particular the Transformative Game Design Masters Degree for this list of various expert lenses. I’ll give you my summation of the role for each of these perspectives.

- Physical Logistics Specialist: Think of this person as your go-to for making sure everything fits—literally. They make sure the space works just right and that all the resources are in place so everyone can participate fully without a hitch. This isn’t just for in-person programs. Online events or courses still need a logistics specialist who makes certain that the software being used is the right kind and in working order.
- Communication Specialist: This is your storyteller. They ensure that every message, whether spoken, written, or displayed, is clear and captivating, making certain everyone’s on the same page. This is both in the mode of project production (think of a Project Manager) and also as it pertains to the end users (think of an Instructional Designer). IE. Making sure the instructions for the experience are clear and easy to understand.
- Safety Specialist: Every great project needs a guardian angel, and that’s this specialist. They’re all about creating a safe space where everyone can explore, learn, and process. This role is particularly important in helping your end users calibrate to each other and the topic before engaging in content that might be a polarizing subject or a topic that could be triggering. You don’t want your end users to have a negative experience and this role will lower that risk.
- Accessibility Specialist: Accessibility goes beyond just physical access. This specialist helps make sure that everyone, no matter their ability, can engage fully with the project. These are also called Universal Designers. Trust me – getting these experts on board right at the start of the design process is vital. Many developers don’t bring them in until the project is in a final draft state (or even already available to the public) and then they have to go back and redesign because they didn’t have the lived experience or training to see accessibility through another person’s lens.
- Cultural Consultant: If your project serves or is about a specific demographic, do yourself and the project a big favor and partner with a cultural consultant who is an active member of that culture. And don’t just have them on the side lines telling you what words to use or that such and such design element is not appropriate. This isn’t just about preventing cultural appropriation… it’s about reaching your end users through elements of their own culture and lived experience. There’s a great saying I heard, “Nothing about us without us.” I would also add that if you want a project to go global and to be easily translatable into multiple languages, make sure you have a large number of your designers whose first language is not English. They will help you use words that are clearly translatable and steer away from lingo that certain English users take for granted as being widely known.
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Specialist: With all of the backlash on this in the USA, I am going to make the point that all of the people pushing against DEI are just not getting: You will NEVER be at the pinnacle of innovation if you don’t have a diverse team. This diversity is what brings perspectives that you and people like you don’t have. If you don’t have Equity, then you are not accounting for these differences so your diverse team cannot operate efficiently and once again, you are missing out on peak innovation. And if you don’t have Inclusion, your team won’t feel like they can speak up and provide their full, authentic feedback – which might run counter to what others are saying. But strong innovation requires positive conflict. Just ask any top performing music band.
- Education Specialist: They’re focused on making sure the project isn’t just fun, but also truly educational, with takeaways that stick. These roles are Curriculum Designers and Learning Experience Designers. They know not just how to deliver the content, but how to process the experience so that transfer is the outcome. Transfer means that the end-user has a takeaway from the experience that is applicable to their life outside of the experience.
- Mental Health Professional: This is the partner to the Safety Specialist. Their role is to ensure that the resulting experience supports everyone’s emotional and mental well-being, making it a positive outcome for all participants. The more emotionally challenging the topic you are trying to explore, the more vital this role is in your project. As well, they can assist in the debrief of the participants at the end of the experience so that everyone has a chance to process their emotions and make sense of their interaction.
- Workshop Designer: This person designs engaging activities that not only fit the project’s goals but also help make the experience safer and more engaging. This role identifies how to prepare the participants ahead of time for the experience in such a way that they have a better understanding of what is to come and an agreed upon method for communicating what their comfort level is with the changing dynamics.
- Documentation Lead: They document everything. This role is vital because it helps the team reflect on what’s working and what needs tweaking, while also making sure that everyone is working on the same version. I’m sure some of you recall a time you discovered that you were adding or editing an outdated document and had to start again on the more recent version (insert exasperated sigh here).

So there you go. By incorporating each of these perspectives/roles into the planning process, you can ensure the project isn’t just highly innovative, efficient and effective, but also deeply impactful. Because when you are in the job of making an experience or game that is transformative, you really need to know what you don’t know… and co-design with those who can fill in those gaps for you.

Guardian Adventures provides consulting and transformative design for museum and science centers, summer camps, amusement & attraction industries, and more.

Museums are evolving from static spaces where information is simply presented into dynamic environments that engage visitors in meaningful and even transformative ways. Transformative Game Design plays an important role in this evolution, turning museum visits into immersive, interactive experiences that not only educate but also inspire visitors to take action based on their new insights.

This approach leverages game mechanics to create compelling narratives/adventures and challenges that resonate with visitors on a personal level. This then encourages them to reflect on and change their behavior outside the museum. This concept is called “transfer” and is considered the pinnacle of education. But this process is entirely dependent upon the type of experience the visitor has, how they feel about it (because emotion inspires action), and whether or not they know what their next step is for acting on this new perspective.

To help illustrate this, we’ve come up with nine example interactions that are broken out into the type of Exhibit, the Design of the interaction, and the Action that this inspires in the visitor.

1. Climate Action Simulation

Exhibit: Climate Crisis Interactive
Design: Visitors participate in a role-playing game where they act as leaders of different countries tasked with negotiating a global climate deal. The game uses real data to show the impact of their decisions on global emissions and climate change.
Action: Participants are encouraged to commit to personal or community actions to reduce carbon footprints, with resources (based on their locale) provided to help them implement these changes.

2. Historical Immersion LARP

Exhibit: The Underground Railroad Experience
Design: A live-action role-playing (LARP) game that recreates scenarios from the Underground Railroad. Visitors assume the roles of various historical figures, making critical decisions that affect their journey to freedom.
Action: This exhibit prompts visitors to engage with modern issues of justice and equality, directing them to volunteer opportunities with local civil rights organizations.

3. Economic Decision-Making Game

Exhibit: Trade and Commerce in the Ancient World
Design: An interactive board game where players trade goods along historical trade routes, facing challenges like pirates and storms. The game highlights the economic principles and the impact of trade policies.
Action: Players learn about fair trade and are provided with information on how to support ethical consumer practices.

4. Public Health Interactive Challenge

Exhibit: Outbreak!
Design: A digital interactive experience where visitors work together to stop a spreading infectious disease by making public health decisions and allocating resources effectively.
Action: The game encourages visitors to participate in health initiatives and educates them on ways to prevent disease spread in their communities.

5. Art Conservation Puzzle

Exhibit: Art in Peril
Design: Visitors solve puzzles that simulate the challenges of art conservation, understanding the chemistry and artistry behind preservation techniques.
Action: Inspired by the exhibit, visitors can donate to art preservation funds or participate in local art restoration projects.

6. Wildlife Conservation Strategy Game

Exhibit: Endangered Ecosystems
Design: A strategy game where visitors manage a wildlife reserve, making decisions about habitat protection and species conservation.
Action: This game inspires visitors to support or volunteer for wildlife conservation efforts and provides information on adopting endangered animals.

7. Archaeological Dig Simulation

Exhibit: Digging Into the Past
Design: A hands-on exhibit where visitors participate in a simulated archaeological dig, uncovering replicas of artifacts and learning about the scientific methods used in archaeology.
Action: Participants are encouraged to support archaeological research through educational programs or become amateur archaeologists… even what local colleges offer archeology as a course.

8. Space Exploration Interactive Lab

Exhibit: Mission to Mars
Design: An interactive lab where visitors plan a mission to Mars, involving challenges like spacecraft design, navigation, and life support systems.
Action: This interaction promotes interest in STEM fields and offers links to space camps and science education initiatives.

9. Sustainable Living Workshop

Exhibit: Future Cities
Design: This interactive model city allows visitors to be involved in urban planning and sustainability decision-making. As they make choices about infrastructure, energy sources, and public spaces, they see the real-time impact of their decisions on the city’s development.
Action: Visitors leave equipped with a “sustainable living toolkit” that includes practical tips and resources for reducing energy consumption and waste in their own homes, encouraging them to make environmentally friendly choices daily.

We hope you found inspiration in the above examples transformative game design that can make museum exhibits more than just informative—they can become catalysts for personal and social change. By adding interactive and actionable elements into your museum experience, your visitors are not only educated but also motivated to apply their new knowledge in meaningful ways. And isn’t that the best outcome for education?

Guardian Adventures provides transformative game consulting and program development for museum and science centers, summer camps, amusement & attraction industries, and more.