Forward: a location-based game for civic learning

A 2020 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that only 51 percent of Americans can name the three branches of the federal government.

In the wake of polarizing algorithms, declining local journalism, and over 40 years of diminished civics requirements in schools, many Americans lack the civic knowledge to take action on the issues they care about. Unfortunately, the handful of organizations that are working to promote civic learning focus exclusively on K-12 classrooms. That’s critical, but it’s not enough. That's why we focus on delivering civic learning outside the classroom with a focus on young parents, young professionals and college students in the United States.

There is a particularly large gap in instructional resources covering local government. Very few of America's 89,000 local governments have the capacity to create civic learning materials that help new residents learn how their community works. We're aiming to address this challenge at scale by first delivering pilots on our beta platform that work for one city at a time in Wisconsin.

Forward is a location-based game that uses real-world spaces as triggers to engage the player with local civics, local history, and local organizations. As they level-up, players earn badges, unlock new challenges, climb the leaderboard and win prizes.

Forward’s design is based on four principles from the field of educational game design: 1) scaffold learning and engagement, 2) enable identity exploration and expression, 3) foster collaboration and community, and 4) offer on-demand opportunities for engagement. The place-based affordances of location-based games are particularly well-suited to civic learning.

We know that building civic literacy at scale is critical step toward engaging more people in today’s most critical causes. Our mission is to help nonprofits, libraries, cities and other civic institutions advance civic learning and participation in their local communities.

See the game live: joinforward.org

This platform serves the state of Wisconsin with a minimal feature set. Some of the learning objectives of our upcoming games include:

• Explore local history through historical markers and primary sources
• Build foundational knowledge of American Democracy, the branches of government, and levels of government
• Understand the rights and responsibilities of United States citizens
• Understand the historical context of the Declaration of Independence
• Learn about the creation of the United States Constitution and its amendments

Our larger goal is to launch Forward nationwide as a full location-based game in 2026. This It would also enable the game to automatically deliver localized content to players in any of the country’s 89,000 local governments.

Our current players include Girl Scout troops, families with kids of all ages, college students, gamers, retirees, youth groups, volunteer groups, and others throughout the state of Wisconsin. When a 20-something player in one of our first pilots told us that he didn't know where city hall was before playing Forward, we knew we were onto something. Our platform can now measure increases in civic skills and dispositions of players... and people have fun playing!

Here are a few quotes:

• Our team "had so much fun with this adventurous way to encourage voting.[My] girls loved all the projects and learning about voting."
• "Thanks for creating this game! I had a blast playing it and it gave my competitive side a little something to strive for."
• "Thanks for creating this game! I had a blast playing it and it gave my competitive side a little something to strive for."

My larger goal is to increase the civic literacy scores and civic participation rates of 1,000,000 Americans by 2030 by creating a multilingual, national version of the game.

Libby Falck has 20+ years of experience as a social entrepreneur, learning designer, and educator. She is currently the Director of Research and Product Design at iCivics, a nonprofit that develops civic learning curriculum used by over 9 million K12 students (Forward is not affiliated with iCivics). She was previously a researcher at the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, a Maker Education Consultant at Autodesk, a co-founder of IDEAco, and the writer and lead creator of the K-12 design thinking curriculum the City X Project.

Forward Games began in 2017 as part of Libby's graduate research at MIT where she was able to interview dozens of local civic leaders and "disengaged voters" in central Wisconsin. Since then, more than 100 students, designers, researchers, educators and community volunteers have contributed to 36 playtests and pilots. This approach has enabled us to engage deeply with a wide variety of community partners and users.

My goals for participating in the Solve program are to:

• Identify technical advisors with expertise in location-based games, crowdsourcing, moderation, and the AT Protocol.
• Meet potential cofounders, hires and collaborators
• Get support in creating a national go-to-market and partnership acquisition strategy
• Continue to improve proficiency and impact measures
• Get legal support with identifying and mitigating potential risks of working with youth, in public, and with content that may be considered politically contentious.
• Connect with content experts to advise a generalizable local civics course, adapted to all 50 states with learning objectives and proficiency measures. This will be the central introductory story in the game.
• Identify programs and opportunities to cut costs.

We are unique in both our target audience for learning (adults/outside

schools; described previously) and our technical approach.

Location-based mechanics are particularly well-suited to civic learning because they:

• Situate learning in relevant contexts
• Influence routines and relationship to physical space
• Function as a new form of ‘‘third place’’ for informal sociability
• Support the development of real-world relationships, building social capital
• Can deliver localized content using public databases

We aren't the first to build this type of game, but we intend to be the first that can scale.

2026 will be America’s 250th birthday - a big moment for the world of civics, history and democracy. I hope it will also be seen as a moment for reflection and learning. That’s why my goal is to launch Forward nationwide that summer as a full location-based game alongside the nation's semiquincentennial celebration.

With a well-timed and heavily publicized kickoff, my goal is to increase the civic literacy scores and civic participation rates of 1,000,000 Americans by 2030.

We currently track total users, players of each game, and the progression of each player through the learning content. This includes tracking changes over time to questions that measure civic skills and dispositions.

Top SDG targets include:

16.10

Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements

11.4

Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage

11.7

By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities

My theory of change is that civic learning creates a path to civic engagement, and it needs to be available to people of all ages. Our mission is to help nonprofits, libraries, cities and other civic institutions leverage game design to advance civic learning and participation in their local communities.

Our beta platform is built on a Wordpress Learning Management System that uses React to render native iOS and Android apps.

This beta needs to be rebuilt, likely in Unity with a maps SDK like Mapbox but I haven’t decided how this will be implemented yet.

I've been able to make a lot of value calls during the pilot stage of this work that will need to be formalized as the project progresses. I prioritize partners and content that represent marginalized stories and perspectives. In Wisconsin, that means highlighting indigenous, Hmong, Black, LGBTQ and other histories that are less often told. Whenever possible, I work with people with lived experiences of the cultures, histories and causes that Forward supports to draft the first version of game content.

I also have strict community standards that emphasize safety and civility within the game.

For hiring, my only paid colleagues in this work are student interns, but I am intentional to hire first-generation students and students who belong to traditionally underrepresented groups in Wisconsin.

We have two tiers of users: players and leaders.

Players use Forward for free, without ads, and without selling personal data. Players may opt to subscribe as a Forward supporter at $5/month; this unlocks a unique avatar and shows support for the mission.

Leaders are the primary customer. They include nonprofits, small businesses, chambers of commerce, municipalities, counties, libraries, museums, historical societies and other civic institutions that want to add custom content to the game. Our most interested set of customers so far has been city leaders.

Verified Leaders can add:

A highlight is a quick, virtual challenge connected to a real-world place. For example, have players complete a set of trivia question after visiting a monument. Highlights can be explored on our map.

Badges reward players for their accomplishments on the Forward platform. We offer dozens of badges out of the box and also work with nonprofits and cities to create custom badges. See our badges.

A challenge is a set of up to 25 actions and trivia questions related to a specific organization, cause or community.
Challenges
are not time-based and can be completed at any point, although some
require players to reach a particular Level (1-20) before they unlock.

A game is a set of up to 150 actions and trivia questions related to a specific organization, cause or community that are available for a limited time. Games can last from 2 hours to 30 days and include:

Our current pricing is below. Once our new platform and crowdsourcing tools are available, these prices may decrease significantly.

Custom content sales and game sponsorship.

We've received funding from the PKG Center at MIT, individual contributions through our fiscal sponsor Create Wisconsin, and support from the Local Government Institute of Wisconsin. We just made our first sale to a city!