EXPLORE THE GAMES AND EXPERIENCES WE'VE DESIGNED WITH OUR CLIENTS AND FOR TEENS.
LIVES IN BALANCE
With funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) CARES Grant program, Lives in Balance was designed by iThrive Games and the masterminds behind the Situation Room Experience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Hosted on the iThrive Sim platform, Lives in Balance invites teens to act as government officials who must make individual and group decisions during a fictional pandemic promoting them to explore the limits of federalism and state rights as they activate and nurture their social and emotional skills. Explore it here.
LEADING THROUGH CRISIS
With funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) CARES Grant program, Leading Through Crisis was designed by iThrive Games and the masterminds behind theSituation Room Experience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. The iThrive Sim game invites teens to explore the executive branch of the U.S. government, using data, primary sources, and problem-solving skills to chart a path forward. Explore it here.
FOLLOW THE FACTS
With funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) CARES Grant program, Follow the Facts was designed by iThrive Games and the masterminds behind the Situation Room Experience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. Hosted on the iThrive Sim platform, Follow the Facts asks teens to step into a role as a journalist or news editor tasked with reporting on a breaking story. Seeking the truth, players are thrust into the action as they dig deep to find credible sources and collaborate with their peers to get the story out with accuracy and without bias. Explore it here.
ITHRIVE SIM
iThrive Games and the masterminds behind the Situation Room Experience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum envisioned and created iThrive Sim. The in-person and virtual classroom-optimized tool brought forth a new digital space for teen collaborative learning and play in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to reach classrooms and teens across the country. The iThrive Sim platform powers role-playing simulation games that animate educational content, scaffolding it with social and emotional skill-building opportunities. Explore it here.
DISASTER MIND
In partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), iThrive Games designed and produced Disaster Mind, a simulation game that promotes disaster preparedness in those who play it. Hosted on iThrive Sim, the single player simulation game is set during the onset of different natural disasters supports FEMA in reaching young people in hard-to-reach areas of their region by engaging them in a readiness and resilience-building activity that delivers transformative education and helps them build the right mindset. Explore it here.
CO2: GLOBAL CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS
High Resolves, an educational nonprofit based in Australia, came to iThrive Games in 2021 with an existing, successful, in-person role-playing game called C02 and a desire to use less resources (in-person facilitators, paperwork, etc.) in delivering it to young people. Our team worked with High Resolves to translate the in-person experience onto our propriety iThrive Sim platform, creating C02: Global Climate Negotiations. Explore it here.
MUSEUM OF ME
iThrive Curriculum: Museum of Me, created with Paul Darvasi and Matthew Farber, is a standards-aligned, 11-lesson curriculum unit that pairs with Giant Sparrow's video game What Remains of Edith Finch to create a meaningful game-based learning experience for 11th and 12th grade students in English and humanities classes. As students play as the game's protagonist Edith and uncover Edith's familial story, they explore their identities and reflect deeply on how they tell their personal stories, connecting the ones they uncover in the game with elements in their own lives. Explore it here.
SAM'S JOURNEY
iThrive Curriculum: Sam's Journey, co-created with Paul Darvasi, is a standards-aligned, three-lesson curriculum unit that pairs with Accidental Queens' award-winning video game, A Normal Lost Phone, to take teens through an interactive social and emotional learning experience in their English or humanities classrooms. In the game, students investigate the contents of a lost smartphone belonging to Sam, uncovering Sam's story as they reflect deeply on their own and on how identity is expressed publicly and privately in an increasingly digitized world. Explore it here.
A MOMENT IN TIME
iThrive Curriculum: A Moment in Time, created in collaboration with pre-service teachers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and English teacher Lauren Geschel, is a standards-aligned, eight-lesson curricular unit for 9th and 10th grade English and humanities classes. The unit pairs with Mountains' Florence, a video game that follows shifts in the life of a young woman, to take teens through a deep exploration of their own emotional landscapes. By the end of the unit, students consider their own relationships and experiences with grief, loss, and change. Explore it here.
THE RUN AROUND
The Run Around is a board game that reflects the lived experiences of youth experts and designers at the SEED Institute's who know and have navigated the cradle-to-prison pipeline. Designed by iThrive and the SEED Institute's designers, BMA TenPoint Alliance and Transition HOPE, the tabletop game was designed after a year of research and truly mirrors structural violence's effect on young people's well-being, deliberately using its mechanics to authentically communicate the harm they experienced in the juvenile justice system. Explore it here.
SELLING DREAMS
Selling Dreams is a single-player simulation game designed by youth experts at the SEED Institute game design mentorship from iThrive Games and the community wisdom of BMA TenPoint Alliance and Transition HOPE staff. Hosted on the iThrive Sim platform, the game invites players to take on the role of a Guardian tasked with meeting the needs of the young people they encounter and helping them through their unique challenges. In their role as a supportive actors, each Guardian must stay on top of files, messages, and relevant news sent to them about the youth they serve. Explore it here.
CHILDREN OF THE FLAME
Children of the Flame is a trauma-informed, single-player virtual reality (VR) game that familiarizes players with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and supports them in understanding their developmental impact and influence on young people's social, emotional, and physical health. The game's prototype was designed with mentorship from iThrive Games and the community wisdom of BMA TenPoint Alliance and Transition HOPE. Explore it here.
SEED INSTITUTE
The SEED Institute was a collaborative program designed by iThrive Games, Transition HOPE, and BMA TenPoint Alliance, where youth impacted by the cradle-to-prison pipeline created games that conveyed their experiences in it and communicated their solutions for disrupting it. Youth designers at the Institute called themselves SEEDs—System Educated Expert Disruptors and received training and mentorship from iThrive Games team to support them in synthesizing their stories in structured games that fostered constructive conversations about systems change. Explore it here.
PLAY PROGRAM
In summer 2022, iThrive Games partnered with the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy to design and deliver the Policy Leadership Advocacy by Youth, or PLAY, Program on the University of Virginia campus. With funding from the Jefferson Trust, teens experienced a weeklong exploration of policy that featured resume-building and college essay-writing workshops, lunch-and-learns, and a field trip. Each day of the PLAY Program began with an iThrive Studio workshop where teens dug into the social issues they care about and the big questions they have in the space of a game. Explore it here.
SUMMER ACADEMY
In September 2022, iThrive Games' Dr. Susan Rivers joined forces with History Co: Lab's Dr. Fernande Raine to design and deliver a dynamic learning experience as part of the Summer Academy for university students hosted by Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. Twenty students participated in the two-week experience, where they participated in group discussions along with game design activities that supported their changemaking, design fluency, and understanding of historical events and themes vital to international relations and the work of sustainable world-building. Explore it here.
SOTERIA VR
Soteria VR is a single-player virtual reality (VR) game conceived by Dr. Doris C. Rusch, the Deep Games Lab at DePaul School of Design, and iThrive Games' Dr. Susan Rivers. The game expands upon an earlier PC version called Soteria: Dreams As Currency, and uses real-time mindset shifts to help users cope with anxiety, taking advantage of the immersive and engaging experiences uniquely offered by VR technologies. Soteria VR supports the player's practice of evidence-based anxiety-management techniques such as developing a tolerance for uncertainty. Explore it here.
CADENCE
In partnership with One Love Foundation, iThrive Games led the design and development of Cadence, a digital game that promotes and builds the knowledge and skills teens and young adults need to navigate healthy and unhealthy relationships. The game amplifies One Love Foundation's mission and educational programming by creating an engaging, playful experience that reaches young people equitably, at scale, and supports their independence and agency in learning. Cadence also measures attitude change and promotes a network effect to amplify the learnings. Explore it here.
OUR THREADS
In December 2021, Luma Mufleh, founder and director of Fugees Family, approached iThrive Games and shared a desire to co-create with students a game that highlighted their expertise, built empathy, and supported schools across the nation in accepting incoming refugee students. The three-day iThrive Studio held with Fugees Family led to our co-creation of Our Threads, a question card game that supports refugee students resettling in towns and cities across the U.S., as well as non-refugee students, in feeling understood, welcomed, and cared for by others. Explore it here.