CHECKMATE Training: From Playing Games to Designing Them

What makes a simulation game work? Is it the story, the roles, the conflict, the rules, or the moment when participants realise that their decisions have consequences? During the CHECKMATE Training of Trainers in Vienna, Austria, 26 youth workers explored these questions by moving beyond simply using educational games to understanding how they are designed and how they can become powerful tools for learning.

The training focused on climate misinformation, game-based learning and simulation methodology. Participants explored how misinformation spreads, how climate-related claims can influence public opinion and what role youth workers can play in strengthening critical thinking and media literacy among young people. The programme combined fact-checking strategies with role-play, simulation-based learning and collaborative game design, connecting the topic of climate misinformation with practical methods that youth workers can bring into their own activities. 

Learning through playing

Before designing a simulation, it helps to experience one. Participants therefore explored the principles of game-based learning and tested existing simulation approaches themselves. Playing from the participant's perspective allowed them to observe what creates engagement: having a clear role, needing to make decisions, interacting with people who have competing interests and not always knowing how the situation will develop. 

But the training also encouraged youth workers to look behind the game. What is the facilitator doing while participants are negotiating? When should they intervene and when should they allow the group to struggle? How do you keep a simulation moving without controlling its outcome? And how do you make sure that participants leave with more than memories of an entertaining activity?

This brought particular attention to debriefing. A simulation can create competition, frustration, alliances and unexpected decisions, but those experiences become educational when participants have space to analyse them afterwards. Youth workers practised techniques for pulling out the learning and connecting what happened inside a fictional scenario with real challenges surrounding climate misinformation, decision-making and communication. 

From players to game designers

Once participants had explored how simulations work, the next challenge was to design their own. Rather than starting with game mechanics, groups began with the learning experience they wanted to create. What issue should participants confront? What conflict would make them think? Which perspectives need to be represented? What information should each role have, and what should remain unknown?

Working in small groups, youth workers developed scenarios around climate misinformation and began identifying potential roles such as journalists, scientists, influencers, policymakers, citizens and actors spreading misleading information. They then created initial role cards, objectives and scenario dynamics before presenting their ideas to others for feedback. 

This process helped participants see that a good educational simulation needs more than an interesting story. Roles need meaningful objectives, stakeholders need reasons to interact, and the decisions participants make should connect directly with the intended learning outcomes. At the same time, the game needs enough uncertainty and freedom for participants to shape what happens rather than simply following a predetermined script.

Design, test, change, repeat

An important part of the process was understanding that the first version of a game does not need to be perfect. Early simulation drafts were tested with other participants, followed by reflection on what worked, what was confusing and where the educational value could be strengthened. 

For youth workers, this offered a practical introduction to iterative game design: create an idea, test it, observe how people actually interact with it, collect feedback and improve it. Sometimes a role that looks interesting on paper has very little to do during the game. Sometimes instructions that seem obvious to the designer are completely unclear to players. And sometimes participants find a strategy or interpretation that the designers never expected. Testing is therefore not simply the final step of creating a simulation – it is part of the design itself.

Across the four-day programme, participants moved progressively from understanding climate misinformation to experiencing simulation-based learning, exploring facilitation techniques, creating scenarios and testing their own ideas. The curriculum was intentionally structured to move from foundational concepts towards practical application and co-creation. 

Bringing game-based learning back to youth work

The aim was not to turn every participant into a professional game designer. Instead, the training showed that youth workers can use relatively simple simulation principles to transform complex topics into experiences where young people have something to investigate, negotiate and decide.

Participants left with greater understanding of climate misinformation and hands-on experience in both facilitating and designing educational simulation games. They also strengthened their ability to use role-play and gamified methods to encourage critical thinking, collaboration and engagement among young people. 

The next step was to bring this learning into local youth work. Participants planned follow-up activities where simulation-based methods, CHECKMATE tools and concepts from the training could be tested with young people in their own communities. 

The four days demonstrated something simple but important: games in youth work do not have to be just energisers or entertainment. When designed with a clear learning purpose, a simulation can create a space where young people question information, experience different perspectives, make difficult decisions and discover for themselves why complex problems rarely have simple answers.

Erasmus+ Cooperation partnership

Living Labs and Game-Based Learning to Checkmate Climate Misinformation

Project No.  2024-2-LV02-KA220-YOU-000266268

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.