What is PCL?
Playful City Lab (PCL) is a research lab based at American University in Washington DC. At PCL, we explore questions on how play can strengthen communities, surface local stories, and reimagine civic engagement in public spaces. By designing low-tech, low-barrier-to-entry place-based tools and strategies, we invite everyday people, often through trusted institutions like libraries and museums, to participate as designers, storytellers, and collaborators. The lab's work blends research, tool-building, and hands-on community partnerships, with a strong emphasis on accessibility, equity, and playful experimentation as a way to make civic life more participatory and human.
Our Core Projects
Hive Mechanic & EBOW (Playful City Lab)
Hive Mechanic is Playful City Lab's open-source authoring tool for neighborhood games and stories that run on everyday phones-no app required. It connects with services like SMS and voice (via providers such as Twilio and WhatsApp) so players can text, call, and explore local spaces through story, scavenger hunts, and puzzles intermixed between digital and physical spaces. The tool, and all of the materials surrounding it, are designed to be as accessible as possible so as to work towards our goal of helping to democratize game design and share local stories.​
Engaging Beyond Our Walls (EBOW)
EBOW is Playful City Lab's (PCL) national initiative (with the DC Public Library) that trained libraries and museums to design playful, low-tech experiences within their communities' physical spaces - primarily built with our tool, Hive Mechanic. This program supported 50+ towns and cities nation wide with training, templates, and community-focused design practices, backed by IMLS funding. The project culminated in the creation of our EBOW Recipe Book for interactive story game recipes to engage communities and strengthen local places. Our approach throughout was to use and create accessible tools and curriculum which covered both the use of our tools and how to think playfully using interactivity, connection mechanics, and game design strategies.
Highlights of my many-hat-wearing work at PCL
Games & Template Design
Built test and template games to stretch Hive Mechanic's capabilities and show creators what's possible. Largely, this was around creating small puzzles mixing physical and digital space and crafting narrative personalities to guide players through activities. The games samples were typically quite short so that players could interactive with them while out on a walk - and as a bonus, this helped make creating these games feel more approachable to our participants.
Graphic Design & Illustrations
Kept visuals simple and inviting, helping participants to feel empowered to make and iterate on their own graphics to help share their games to wider audiences in their towns. I also delivered web graphics, postcards, flyers, infographics, project collages, and lightweight game assets for PCL and EBOW partners.
Curriculum Development
Co-designed training that paired Hive how-tos with game-design fundamentals and "connection mechanics," culminate in the EBOW Recipe Book (15+ community story game "recipes"), where I am a co-author.
Training & Design Mentoring
Ran emails, office hours, and 1:1 brainstorms - helping participants shape ideas, refine flows, debug games, and fix blockers. I was considered the "Friendly Face" of the team who could not only help work through any problem, but make the process (the whats, hows, and whys) understandable - plus I was always ready to celebrate the wins of our participants.
Documentation & Storytelling
Tracked iterations, interviewed participants, and wrote project posts to capture process and impact.
Technical & Admin Support
Bridged setup and maintenance for "spiky" tools (e.g., Twilio integrations) and the Hive Mechanic admin, helping keep the more highly technical components away from our project participants.