The Serious Games Maker Days entered their third round in 2025 and showed just how much power there is in games. For three days, people from the fields of game development, design, research and organisational development came together in Chemnitz to develop new games for work, everyday life and society.
The Serious Games Night at the Stadtwirtschaft invited people to try out serious games for themselves and experience in a playful way what would otherwise remain abstract. The audience could try to keep systems in balance in Equilibrium, for example, or face the monsters of digital distraction together in TabHorter. At the Oh! wie Osten table, space was created for dialogue beyond the stereotypes between East and West, young and old. Along the way, paper planes whizzed around the room, improvised marble runs were tested and team games got people talking.
The next day, the developers' workshop moved into the Holzkombinat. 28 selected participants developed collaborative games in six teams. Figures, cards and prototypes were created directly on site, whether with laser cutters, 3D printing or carving tools.
One day later, the results were presented on stage at the Serious Games Slam: six teams presented brand new prototypes to the audience:
- Ciao! Wow! Hi! Ai! makes the rules of the European AI Act playable and shows why they are important for administration and companies.
- Disruption to build asks how teams can find new ways together in crises.
- Little Heroes of Nature turns nature conservation into a team task and shows how collaboration changes the environment.
- DiverCity creates a playing field for diversity and empathetic interaction with very different needs.
- Zoe is an introductory game for care teams that makes commonalities visible and places humanity at the centre.
- Die Geister, die wir rufen brings generations together in the office - playfully and with humour.
In the end, there were two winning teams and huge cheers. At the same time, it became clear that the games are not only fun, but also economically relevant: Even at the slam, companies and institutions showed interest in games for the care sector, for example.
The Serious Games Maker Days are part of the Makers, Business & Arts programme of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025, implemented by the Landesverband der Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft Sachsen e.V. and supported by the Kulturhauptstadt Europas Chemnitz 2025 gGmbH.
Special thanks go to the British Council: thanks to their support, Arlo Howard from London and Prof Sylvester Arnab from the University of Coventry were able to take part and contribute ideas. This enabled international exchange and sustainable relationships and made Chemnitz visible as part of the European network.