2025 GEE!
Learning Game Awards
The GEE! award recognizes excellence in educational game design. The award is judged by international leaders in the field.
2025 Finalists have been announced! Vote for your favorite and check them out below.
The Long & Short of it.
In the spirit of James Paul Gee’s scholarship, we’ve created an award to recognize best educational video games in the world. Finalists will showcase their games during the Play Make Learn conference. Send us your best!
2025 GEE! Learning Game Award Finalists
Formal Learning
Learning games for use in formal school contexts
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Finalists
Investigation Declaration (iCivics)
Uncovering Loyalties (iCivics)
Election Lab (Indelible Learning)
Crown & Capital (Simcoach Games)
Judges
Amy Patterson (Chief Program Officer, Urban Arts)
Amanda Siebert-Evenstone (Efficacy Researcher, Age of Learning)
Ray Kimball (Founder and CEO, 42 Educational Games Coaching and Design)
Jeci Younger (PBS Kids)
Valentin Briukhanov (Lead Game Designer, CodeCombat)
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Informal Learning
For home, family, museums, libraries, etc.
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Finalists
Salvage Safari in Robot World (Filament Games)
Evivve (Evivve)
Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge: High School Game (Sea Monster Entertainment)
Cyber Sound Quest (PBS Kids)
Judges
Barry Joseph (Barry Joseph Consulting)
Chris Baker (WI Department of Public Instruction)
Ashlyn Sparrow (Senior Research Associate, Weston Game Lab, Media Arts, Data, and Design Center, University of Chicago)
Brendon Trombley (Games for Change)
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Analog Games
Board games, card games, or other non-digital games
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Finalists
Toma el Paso (Make a Move) (Lien Tran)
That’s Just Wrong! (Speke Wilson)
Publish or Perish (Max Bai)
Field Cut (Zachary London)
Reel Trouble (Adina Weiss)
GAMA de Mesa (Hifa Educação)
PowerCell (Ryan Merkley)
So You Want to Be an American? (CreatED Consulting, LLC)
Judges
Peter McDonald (UW-Madison)
Gyeongri Kim (UW-Madison)
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Small and Indie Studios
Studios with <$100k in funding for the game
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Finalists
Life (Re)Sounding (UniSA)
Opal (Andrew Fenner)
Chaos Corp.: Troll Farm Simulator (Spencer Striker)
Cozy River Valley (Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University)
Velvet 89 (Charles Games)
Judges
Michael Douma (IDEA Games)
Jenny Saucerman (Credit Union National Association)
Sebastian Connette (CEO Debuff Interactive)
Al Olsen (NYU CREATE Lab)
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People’s Choice Award
Every year we poll the public and crown one amazing game the People’s Choice recipient.
Judging Criteria
When judging an entry, we ask the following:
Does it Empower Learners?
Does it create Problems Worth Solving?
Does it create Deep Understanding?
Does it work smoothly?
Is it visually interesting?
Is it original?
What Do We Get?
For the Winners:
A GEE! Award Winner badge to use on your website and promotional materials
Your game featured on the GEE! Award website
The opportunity to talk about your game during a dedicated hybrid session at Play Make Learn
For the Finalists:
A GEE! Award Finalist badge to use on your website and promotional materials.
Your game featured on the GEE! Award website