In March 2026, the University of Florence (UniFi), under the supervision of Professor Leonardo Boncinelli, organized a five-session educational module focused on game design as a learning methodology. The module required participating students to develop a playable analogue game prototype for at least four players, addressing a specific design challenge centred on the management of common goods and common-pool resource dilemmas.
The selected desiderata was particularly relevant to the participants’ academic background, as all students were enrolled in programmes offered by the Department of Political Economy. The activity was therefore designed to establish a direct connection between theoretical concepts explored within the social sciences and their practical application through game design.
Modelling Economic & Institutional Dynamics
The workshop introduced games as tools for modelling, analysing, and communicating policy challenges as well as economic, institutional, and social dynamics. Through a learning-by-game-design approach, a variation of project-based learning, students were guided in translating key concepts from the social sciences, including actors, incentives, rules, constraints, imperfect information, conflict, and cooperation, into game mechanics capable of representing trade-offs and the intended or unintended consequences of collective decision-making.
“Through learning-by-game-design, students translated actors, incentives, imperfect information, and cooperation directly into playable trade-offs.”
Testing the Updated Structures Stack
Within the workshop, the LUNA Framework was employed exclusively during the ideation phase. The activities also provided an opportunity to test an updated version of the framework featuring additional categories and the newly introduced Structures stack.
Despite the novelty of the approach for students without prior game design experience, the framework proved to be highly accessible and effective. Within a relatively short time frame, all participating groups were able to define clear and coherent game concepts that balanced playable dynamics with the representation of complex socio-economic issues.