I was really excited to represent Mouse at the 2014 Games for Change Festival. It was an inspiring conference that made me even more excited to continue work on  our own Serious Game Design experiences for youth in Mouse programs. I created this slide show to share back some of what I learned with the rest of the Mouse team, and offer it here in case my experience can inform the thinking and practice of others. 

• Game designer Nick Fortugno's well-played reading of Papers Please and how it allows for a more open ended exploration of morality than most games. It was fascinating to see how much this game straddled the worlds of "serious games" and regular indie games that people just want to play for fun. 
• Mary Flanagan from Tiltfactor discussed some of the research that shows just associating a game with words that sound like teaching, or describing a game as being about "issues" reduces that game's impact.
• Game designer Paolo Pedercini's talk on the games for change industry was an invigorating wake up call. He concluded that the best action we can take for the future is to teach game making to young people instead of just giving them learning games to play. The literacy of game making is much more valuable than the impact that any one game can make.

** Papers Please
** Gone Home
** Migrant Trail
** Buffalo (tiltfactor card game) 

Alex Flemming is Programs Coordinator at Mouse .