DESIGNING WITH AMBIGUITY: Iterating Equity in Game Jam Design

Abstract

This paper examines how inclusive, pluriversal, and transversal design lenses can reimagine game jams with youth, supporting and qualifying them as equitable, transformative, and empowering interventions. Drawing on theoretical and analytical insights from a contemporary research and innovation project that develops and experiments with cultural game jams, we examine how the design and iteration of these as collaborative game-making spaces can foster creativity, equity, and new forms of collective care.

We initially frame the emerging field of game jams and their design, along with framing the three design lenses of inclusive, pluriversal, and transversal design. Through a retrospective analysis of the iterative processes involved in planning, designing, executing and evaluating cultural game jams with youth as participants and partners, we discuss how these lenses might inform more just and participatory design processes and propose relevant design questions. We argue that they offer valuable frameworks for addressing power, fostering care, and enabling young people to imagine and shape their futures. The paper contributes a theoretically grounded and practice-based framework for designing game jams to foster ethical, inclusive, and co-creative participation through the lenses of inclusive, pluriversal, and transversal design approaches.