Play the City provides a scenario‑driven city‑gaming platform that enables municipal governments, planners, and community stakeholders to collaboratively explore urban policy challenges through role‑play and visual storytelling. The platform records participants’ choices, rationales, and consensus metrics in real time, delivering analytics that can be integrated directly into policy drafts. It supports both in‑person and remote workshops and can be customized to local regulatory contexts.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Urban policymakers and stakeholders often struggle to engage diverse citizen groups and market actors in meaningful dialogue, leading to fragmented decision‑making and delayed solutions for complex city challenges. Traditional consultation formats are frequently jargon‑heavy, time‑consuming, and fail to generate shared ownership of outcomes.
Solution
Play the City offers a structured city‑gaming method that transforms policy problems into collaborative game experiences. By translating urban issues into scenario‑based gameplay, the platform enables policymakers, market participants, and citizens to interact in a neutral, jargon‑free environment. Real‑time facilitation guides participants toward consensus solutions while capturing insights for immediate policy integration. The approach blends academic research with practical implementation, ensuring that game outcomes are both evidence‑based and actionable for municipal decision‑makers.
Target Audience
Primary customers are municipal governments, urban planning agencies, and community development organizations seeking inclusive, evidence‑driven participation processes for city‑level projects. Secondary users include NGOs, real‑estate developers, and research institutions that require structured stakeholder engagement tools.
Features
- Scenario‑driven game design that maps complex urban problems onto interactive decision‑making modules
- Multi‑stakeholder facilitation tools that support simultaneous participation of policymakers, businesses, and residents
- Jargon‑free user interface with visual storytelling and role‑play elements to lower entry barriers
- Integrated data capture and analytics dashboard that records choices, rationales, and consensus metrics for post‑game policy review
- Modular framework allowing customization of game mechanics to fit local regulatory contexts and planning cycles
- Hybrid delivery model supporting both in‑person workshops and remote digital sessions via web‑based platforms
- Academic‑backed methodology that aligns game outcomes with evidence‑based urban research and evaluation standards
- Scalable deployment demonstrated across 42 city games in 9 countries, engaging over 4,900 participants