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Join us in Pittsburgh for our three sessions at the Meaningful Play conference, October 13-15, 2026. This is one of the most influential conferences for game design principles tied to serious and meaningful games. Originally started in 2008 at Michigan State University, it is noted for bringing together an unusual mix of HCI researchers, game designers, educators and industry professionals. Our sessions: (1) _Walk and play workshop (90 minutes):_ “**Make an Outdoor Game with Hive Mechanic:** Story Games for All Towns and Sculptures” – Wednesday at 1:45pm, with Eric Schoenborn, Michael Barletta, Meagan Couture, and Benjamin Stokes. (2) _Poster:_ “Hive Mechanic: **Toward Game Systems for Connected Neighborhood Play**” – Tuesday and Wednesday nights, 7-9pm, with Eric Schoenborn, Michael Barletta, Meagan Couture, Benjamin Stokes and co-authored with Chris Karr and Hazel Arroyo. (3) _Lightning talk:_ “**Ensuring Joy in Local Design:** A call for partnership with playfulness” – Thursday at 3pm, presented by Eric Schoenborn on behalf of the Playful City Lab team. Poster preview: _(This is a small version; the actual size is 4×3 feet.)_ _Additional descriptions and details:_ ## (1) _Walk and play:_ Make an Outdoor Game with Hive Mechanic: Story Games for All Towns and Sculptures In this 90-minute workshop, we will play and then build three real neighborhood “story games,” all using a game authoring tool we made called Hive Mechanic. No programming experience needed. We have spent the past several years training community leaders in 50 cities and towns to create their own games and interactive stories to go beyond their walls, especially outside neighborhood libraries and art centers. The genres for our games vary from scavenger hunts to interactive audio tours, outdoor escape rooms and more. The games involve mobile messaging and QR codes – but can also be tied into city data streams, AI, and the Internet of Things. New innovations continue to emerge, despite it looking “low-tech.” The budget for each of the games was remarkably low: under $300 USD. Successful prior games and playful stories have included: texting with the ghost of a real train caboose parked outside a public library; a bike tour of library branches and their history with trivia at each location; an augmented voice tour of a history exhibit on Black feminism in the region; and more. (We have a paper on some of our findings with US public libraries at this DiGRA.) The technological focus of this workshop is unusual for being minimalist and highly accessible. Specifically, this workshop will utilize __Hive Mechanic__, our open-source system for ordinary residents to make low-tech games for their own neighborhoods. No coding or programming experience is needed to use it. Hive Mechanic is a free engine that focuses on low-tech mobile games that include audio and multimedia messaging (including WhatsApp and MMS). The game engine allows for coordinating teams of players by SMS, voice trees through regular phones, and more advanced integration with city data flows (e.g., bus arrival times). The interface uses a “fill in the blank” approach (see Figure 2). Three design values anchor this workshop: (1) Low-tech for accessibility. (2) Do it ourselves. (3) Amplify community assets. Likely game types are in Table 1. All three of the major game types feature a ‘protagonist’ who is chosen by residents to respond to the player’s texts and calls. The protagonist as a respondent brings voice and character to the experience. The range of protagonists include neighborhood ghosts, murals that talk back, neighborhood legends, and quirky tour guides. The protagonist emerged as highly valuable for residents in making the experiences more playful (see the following section). One question we hope to raise for player studies concerns the intersectional pleasures of neighborhood games – and how they may be distinct. For example, the linked pleasures of playing and making games can especially overlap at the local level (this is similar to the joys of “buying local” at a farmer’s market, or selling your own honey). ## (2) _Poster:_ Hive Mechanic: Toward Game Systems for Connected Neighborhood Play This poster presents Hive Mechanic (“Hive”), a novel open-source game engine and hosting framework for neighborhood-scale outdoor play. Developed and tested across more than 50 towns and cities over five years, Hive explores how civic organizations can create games tied to local history and content using minimalist mobile infrastructure. Hive offers a counter-model to dominant visions of location-based gaming, opening up new kinds of neighborhood-scale play that connects to city data streams, and argues implicitly for ne investment in low-cost playful infrastructure for all neighborhoods. Read more: our tools and tactics index, the Hive Mechanic tool, and our tasting menu of designs made ## (3) _Lightning talk:_ Ensuring Joy in Local Design: A call for partnership with playfulness Presented by Eric Schoenborn, PhD candidate at American University How can game design be part of local storytelling? All towns have history, but most have few resources. Yet they still have the right to tell their own stories, claim their identities, and engage their own residents – and not just be in a game database. This microtalk seeks to energize the approach to neighborhood game design. This talk is inspired by our work with over 50 towns to make their own games and interactive stories in collaboration with our lab. In contrast to global apps that emphasize graphics (e.g., _Pokemon GO_), low-tech play for communities can include voice trees for ordinary phones, branching stories by text message with AI, WhatsApp for media delivery, and QR codes for scavenger hunts – just to name a few. Rather than focus on making one game (product model), or teaching locals to make games (training model), we argue for _game design as a neighborhood service_. The importance is not in the ludic object, but in scaling the design capacity of our towns. What would success look like? Drawing on service design, we argue for _scaling the design relationships and retaining enthusiasm_ – with game principles embedded in the templates. Drawing on playful improvisation in game design, this talk reveals a service model for building game prototypes around what we call _minimal viable joy._ It has three dimensions: (1) locating playful partners; (2) scaffolding viable imagination; (3) co-creating games asynchronously. Conceptually, this aligns with extensive research on participatory design, co-design and modular design. Our model begins with specific partnerships as prerequisites to design. Like finding the right venue for your punk band or improv theater troupe, the search for compatible partners must be active, even as it depends on chance. The metadesign of the partnership moves from an RFP model to one of cultivation and networked referrals. After a playful partner is in conversation, the focus shifts to the second dimension: scaffolding the viable imagination. In a low-tech and under-resourced environment, creative constraints must be rebalanced to ensure genuine joy and play. There is an “ah-ha!” moment when locals see how a game form aligns with one of their core narratives or identities – like the first time a local statue texts you a photo. Metadesign is essential for balancing the game models (which embed the game principles) alongside more open-ended creativity. For example, we argue for a novel approach to pitch decks (versus game design docs) that remix local content (e.g., photos of local murals) with game design principles, serving as a prompt for the creative process. Once an improvised game is understood (with compatible mechanics and experience goals), we’ve established a viable imagination. Third, co-creation is demarcated by playable prototypes. For low-budget games, the experience may be 5-15 minutes. Silly stickers, playful events, and humorous hand-outs have scaffolded the co-creation process through improvisation. Minimal viable joy as a frame for partnership is both an orienting goal and litmus test for a compatible process to scaffold game design to many more towns.

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