Abstract

Digital literacy initiatives disproportionately favour school children, leaving older adults and individuals in spaces of economic precarity without access. Current initiatives to provide digital literacy skills, struggle to provide analog methods of learning creating an access gap. Escape games, collaborative puzzle solving games, offer a promising educational alternative by naturally promoting a critical evaluation of game material. The project demonstrates a method that can provide information about digital processes without the barriers of online learning through an analog escape room titled, Reactile. The game uses analogy and facilitator performed characters to represent content and guide players into discussion about the collection of data for platform personalization, filter bubbles, and echo chambers. Connecting activist facilitation practices with subversive teaching approaches, this Masters outlines the process of making and implementing a serious escape game that represents digital infrastructure. Placing players at the forefront of the learning practice, the game embeds reflection during and after play, prompting players to connect their experience and knowledge to the issues discussed. The project acts a template for intergenerational knowledge exchange through games.