Gala 2026 Conference Program

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Conference Program

Explore the official schedule for the 15th Games and Learning Alliance Conference (GALA 2026) in L’Aquila, Italy, 17-20 November 2026.

Note: Main track allows 15 min per paper — no parallel sessions.

Tuesday 17 November (Click to expand/collapse)

10:30 – 11:30

Registration

11:30 – 11:40

Opening: welcome and introduction to the PhD Day Iza Marfisi, Simone Bassanelli, Antonio Bucchiarone

11:40 – 12:15

Mentor Hunt

12:15 – 13:00

Keynote: Simone Bassanelli

13:00 – 14:00

60-min Lunch break

14:00 – 15:00

PhD pitches: 3-min pitch, max 6 slides

[14:00 – 14:05] Pitch #1 · [164] Embodying the Bee: VR vs. Screen, Perspective, and Psychophysiological Response in a Pollinator Conservation Game
Javad Modaresi, Federico Bonetti and Annapaola Marconi
[14:05 – 14:10] Pitch #2 · [176] How Do Persuasive Game Attributes Motivate Players? A Means-End Chain Approach
Hernan Quintana-Cruz
[14:10 – 14:15] Pitch #3 · [182] Using Gamification to Attract Applicants and Measure Person-Organization Fit
Océane Defresnes, Françoise Bertrand, Bert Schreurs, Eva Derous, Isabelle Hansez and Salvatore Lo Bue
[14:15 – 14:20] Pitch #4 · [208] Towards Sensory-Informed Game Design to Support Emotional Regulation in Autistic Children
Karolina Myszkowska and Darragh Lydon
[14:20 – 14:25] Pitch #5 · [209] Exergames for Interdisciplinary Learning: Effects on Engagement and Learning Outcomes in Physical Education–Language Sequences
Chiara Morotti, Valentin Benzing, Patrick Fargier and Vanessa Lentillon-Kaestner
[14:25 – 14:30] Pitch #6 · [210] Designing Play Around Architectural Constraints: A PhD Study of Assembly Language Learning Games
Ernesto Rivera-Alvarado and Saul Guadamuz
[14:30 – 14:35] Pitch #7 · [125] Facilitation in Serious Games for Public Service Design: Towards a Cross-Domain Framework and Practitioner Toolkit
Anna Sioni, Fabio Nonino and Vanissa Wanick
[14:35 – 14:40] Pitch #8 · [181] Educators as Game Masters: Leveraging TTRPGs to Empower Higher Education Instructors in Gameful Learning Design
Alejandro Velázquez-Treviño and Leonardo David Glasserman-Morales
[14:40 – 14:45] Pitch #9 · [184] A Course-Integrated Gamified Learning Environment for Structural Learning in Architectural Education
Nisanur Özçelik and Sema Alaçam
[14:45 – 14:50] Pitch #10 · [204] Playing Europe at the table: analogue serious games, structured debriefing and proto-civic learning
Walter Rapetti
[14:50 – 14:55] Pitch #11 · [205] Fostering Game Design in k-12 education: A Framework for Teachers’ Game Design Literacy
Ana Esther Rodrigues de Camargo, Kaiju Kangas and Sini Davies
[14:55 – 15:00] Pitch #12 · [207] From Game-Based Learning to an On-Site Serious Heritage Game: A Doctoral Research Line for Archaeological Parks with Limited Visible Evidence
Gianni Furiassi, Alessandro Terrosi, Stefano Paolo Mucci and Clarissa Pellegrino

15:00 – 15:30

Poster session 1

[Poster #1 · 164] Embodying the Bee: VR vs. Screen, Perspective, and Psychophysiological Response in a Pollinator Conservation Game
Javad Modaresi, Federico Bonetti and Annapaola Marconi
[Poster #2 · 176] How Do Persuasive Game Attributes Motivate Players? A Means-End Chain Approach
Hernan Quintana-Cruz
[Poster #3 · 182] Using Gamification to Attract Applicants and Measure Person-Organization Fit
Océane Defresnes, Françoise Bertrand, Bert Schreurs, Eva Derous, Isabelle Hansez and Salvatore Lo Bue
[Poster #4 · 208] Towards Sensory-Informed Game Design to Support Emotional Regulation in Autistic Children
Karolina Myszkowska and Darragh Lydon
[Poster #5 · 209] Exergames for Interdisciplinary Learning: Effects on Engagement and Learning Outcomes in Physical Education–Language Sequences
Chiara Morotti, Valentin Benzing, Patrick Fargier and Vanessa Lentillon-Kaestner
[Poster #6 · 210] Designing Play Around Architectural Constraints: A PhD Study of Assembly Language Learning Games
Ernesto Rivera-Alvarado and Saul Guadamuz

15:30 – 16:00

Poster session 2

[Poster #7 · 125] Facilitation in Serious Games for Public Service Design: Towards a Cross-Domain Framework and Practitioner Toolkit
Anna Sioni, Fabio Nonino and Vanissa Wanick
[Poster #8 · 181] Educators as Game Masters: Leveraging TTRPGs to Empower Higher Education Instructors in Gameful Learning Design
Alejandro Velázquez-Treviño and Leonardo David Glasserman-Morales
[Poster #9 · 184] A Course-Integrated Gamified Learning Environment for Structural Learning in Architectural Education
Nisanur Özçelik and Sema Alaçam
[Poster #10 · 204] Playing Europe at the table: analogue serious games, structured debriefing and proto-civic learning
Walter Rapetti
[Poster #11 · 205] Fostering Game Design in k-12 education: A Framework for Teachers’ Game Design Literacy
Ana Esther Rodrigues de Camargo, Kaiju Kangas and Sini Davies
[Poster #12 · 207] From Game-Based Learning to an On-Site Serious Heritage Game: A Doctoral Research Line for Archaeological Parks with Limited Visible Evidence
Gianni Furiassi, Alessandro Terrosi, Stefano Paolo Mucci and Clarissa Pellegrino

16:00 – 16:15

15-min Coffee break

16:15 – 17:00

Individual mentor-candidate meetings

17:00 – 18:30

The Common Thread: A LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Workshop on the Identity of Gameful Learning

Table 1 · [164] Modaresi et al. · [176] Quintana-Cruz · [182] Defresnes et al. · [208] Myszkowska & Lydon · [209] Morotti et al. · [210] Rivera-Alvarado & Guadamuz
Table 2 · [125] Sioni et al. · [181] Velázquez-Treviño & Glasserman-Morales · [184] Özçelik & Alaçam · [204] Rapetti · [205] Rodrigues de Camargo et al. · [207] Furiassi et al.

18:30 – 18:45

PhD Symposium – announcement of the 3 finalists for Best PhD Pitches Wed 18 Nov 17:30-18:00 (3 × 5 min)

19:00 – 20:30

Social event

Wednesday 18 November (Click to expand/collapse)

08:00 – 09:00

Registration

09:00 – 09:30

Opening

09:30 – 10:30

Keynote 1: Dr. Annapaola Marconi (45+15 min)

10:30 – 11:00

30-min Coffee break

11:00 – 12:30

Foundation, Frameworks and Taxonomies – 6 papers (90 min)

[11:00 – 11:15] Serious or Not? The Convergence of Serious and Consumer Game Design and the Case for a New Taxonomy
Simone Pio Barbagallo and Filippo Stanco
[11:15 – 11:30] When Points Become a Problem: Cognitive Ethics of Gamification in Educational and Serious Game Design
Simone Pio Barbagallo and Filippo Stanco
[11:30 – 11:45] Investigating Consensus Representations in Serious Games: A Semantic and Structural Comparison Method for Studying Models in the Literature
Madeleine Valat, Alexis Lebis, Anthony Fleury and Mathieu Vermeulen
[11:45 – 12:00] Philosophy of Play Teleological Proportionality in Serious Games
Avo Schönbohm
[12:00 – 12:15] Designing for Meaningful Momentary Engagement: The Intrinsic Integration Design Framework for Game-Based Learning
Kristian Kiili and Manuel Ninaus
[12:15 – 12:30] The evolution of serious games research: a bibliometric analysis of the International Journal of Serious Games (2014-2025)
Mariana Rocha

12:30 – 15:00

Lunch + Poster 1 16 WiP + 6 PhD (150 min)

[WiP – Board 1-01] Braingineering: a prototype educational resource merging gamified biomedical learning with Augmented Reality
John Chilton
[WiP – Board 1-02] Teacher Design Personas as a Reflective Safe Space for Conceptualizing Digital Game-Based Learning in Pre-Service Teacher Education
Petra Weixelbraun, Ole Sejer Iversen and Fares Kayali
[WiP – Board 1-03] CyberOps Commander: Designing a Serious Game for Cybersecurity Leadership and Incident Command Training
Jason Diakoumakos and George Lepouras
[WiP – Board 1-04] Designing for Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: The Leadership Game Design Framework
Kristina Risley, Vanissa Wanick, Christopher Buckingham and Seth Giddings
[WiP – Board 1-05] The Assembly: A Tabletop Game on Italian Constitution-Making
Fabrizio Matarese, Mauro Mola and Enrica Bricchetto
[WiP – Board 1-06] Krillogical: a collaborative game on fallacious reasoning
Bogdan Badale, Kian Sie, Sandro Karhula, Deniz Cetin, Thomas Verwaal, David van der Maas, Tzu-Hsin Hsieh, Amir Zaidi, Francesca de Rosa and Rafael Bidarra
[WiP – Board 1-07] A Gamified Course for Teaching 3D Software in Secondary Education
David Jakubowicz-Schroll and René Röpke
[WiP – Board 1-08] An Immersive Game-Based Platform for Life Skills Assessment: Design Rationale, Implementation, and Early User Feedback
Fabrizio Fornari, Salvatore Mica, Carlo Maria Medaglia, Simone Governatori and Francesco Bocci
[WiP – Board 1-09] AgriLemma in the classroom: A pilot study for game-based agricultural education
Aashna Mittal and Daniel Magwegwe
[WiP – Board 1-10] Mapping the Facilitator Role Across Serious Games, Service Design, and Public Administration: A Cross-Domain Mapping Review
Anna Sioni, Fabio Nonino and Vanissa Wanick
[WiP – Board 1-11] Exploring Group Dynamics in a Collaborative Serious Games Setting: A Pilot Study Using the SYMLOG Framework
Marika Mascitti and Isabella Giacchi
[WiP – Board 1-12] Towards AI-Augmented Tabletop RPGs for Active Citizenship: Integrating Large Language Models into Educational Gameplay
Theo Thomas Vassalli and Giuseppe Città
[WiP – Board 1-13] Operationalizing Game Mechanics in the Context of Game Progression and Player Experience
Franziska Bönisch and Sebastian von Mammen
[WiP – Board 1-14] Combining Social Interdependence Theory and Collaborative Cognitive Load Theory for the Design of Serious Multi-Role Games
Sebastian Simon, Conrad Borchers, Bahar Shahrokhian, Ying-Dong Liu, Elham Tajik and Mia Čarapina
[WiP – Board 1-15] Relief Journey in Progress: Early Insights into Game Ex-perience, Usability, and Pain Responses
Marlene Rosa, Alexandre Cavaleiro, Sara Gordo, Alessandro Rizzi, Silvana Cagiada and Eleonora Chitti
[PhD – Board 1-16] Embodying the Bee: VR vs. Screen, Perspective, and Psychophysiological Response in a Pollinator Conservation Game
Javad Modaresi, Federico Bonetti and Annapaola Marconi
[PhD – Board 1-17] How Do Persuasive Game Attributes Motivate Players? A Means-End Chain Approach
Hernan Quintana-Cruz
[PhD – Board 1-18] Using Gamification to Attract Applicants and Measure Person-Organization Fit
Océane Defresnes, Françoise Bertrand, Bert Schreurs, Eva Derous, Isabelle Hansez and Salvatore Lo Bue
[PhD – Board 1-19] Playing Europe at the table: analogue serious games, structured debriefing and proto-civic learning
Walter Rapetti
[PhD – Board 1-20] Towards Sensory-Informed Game Design to Support Emotional Regulation in Autistic Children
Karolina Myszkowska and Darragh Lydon
[PhD – Board 1-21] Exergames for Interdisciplinary Learning: Effects on Engagement and Learning Outcomes in Physical Education–Language Sequences
Chiara Morotti, Valentin Benzing, Patrick Fargier and Vanessa Lentillon-Kaestner

15:00 – 16:30

Emotion, Motivation and Engagement – 6 papers (90 min)

[15:00 – 15:15] Beyond Fun: Negative Emotions in a Persuasive Ecogame Predict Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Behaviour
Moritz Edlinger, Stefan E. Huber and Manuel Ninaus
[15:15 – 15:30] Social Gamification in Education: Do Emotional Responses Mediate Cognitive Outcomes?
Franz Coelho, Cláudia Ribeiro da Silva and Ana Maria Abreu
[15:30 – 15:45] Effects of Graph Stimuli and Feedback on Epistemic Emotions, Motivational Conflict, and Graph-Reading Literacy during Game-based Learning
Elizabeth Cloude, Eva Kormann, Carina Weichselbraun, Kaicheng Zhang, Antero Lindstedt, Kristian Kiili and Manuel Ninaus
[15:45 – 16:00] From Gameplay to Personal Growth: Exploring the Role of Player and Game Characteristics
Imke Alenka Harbig, Eva Kališnik, Andreas Schroll and Judith Glück
[16:00 – 16:15] Avatar Beats Leaderboard: How Gamification Design Bundles Differentially Satisfy and Frustrate Basic Psychological Needs in Industrial B2B Configurators
Philip Dressel and Sebastian Fischer
[16:15 – 16:30] Motivational Aspects of Hints in Capture-The-Flag (CTF) Learning Environment.
Mahibul Abdullah Ibne Momin and Marko Helenius

16:30 – 17:30

Playful Activity + Coffee break (60 min)

17:30 – 18:00

Best PhD Pitches (3x 5min)

18:00 – 19:30

Games for Society: Civic, Environmental, Health and Professional Domains – 6 papers (90 min)

[18:00 – 18:15] Recognizing Threats & Defending Democracy: A Game-Based Intervention for Disinformation and Threat Recognition in the Civics Classroom
Thomas Nygren, Maja Sjöberg and Theo Kibrat
[18:15 – 18:30] A Framework for Analytical Learning in Flood Mitigation Using Serious Games
Ammad Manan, Rogerio Da Silva and Kuo Ming Chao
[18:30 – 18:45] Designing Competitive and Cooperative Co-play Mechanics for Children’s Nutrition Learning: Insights from a Serious Game Study
Ruobing Wang, Wendy Zhang, Claudia Leong, Yanming Jiang and Simon Hoermann
[18:45 – 19:00] To Play or Not to Play: Teachers’ Perceptions, Drivers, and Barriers to Game-Based Learning in STEM Education
Simone Bassanelli, Antonio Bucchiarone, Pierpaolo Dondio and Iza Marfisi-Schottman
[19:00 – 19:15] Open Badge Ecosystem for Video Game Development and Education: Results from a Pilot Study
David Šosvald, Vít Šisler, Saija Heinonen, Ria Gynther, Daniel Cattier, Steven Malliet and Michal Roch
[19:15 – 19:30] Towards Design Principles for Ontology-Based Serious Games: Supporting Collaborative Value Network Design
Eugene Shenderov, Eelco Braad, Austin D’Souza and Dimka Karastoyanova

Evening

Social event

Thursday 19 November (Click to expand/collapse)

08:00 – 09:00

Registration

09:00 – 09:30

Welcome from the UnivAQ Rector and the USR General Director Introduction to the Game Exhibition

09:30 – 11:30

Game Exhibition (120 min, coffee served in the room)

11:30 – 12:00

School Games Awards

12:00 – 13:00

Keynote 2: Dr. Mustafa Can Gursesli (45+15 min)

13:00 – 15:30

Lunch + Poster 2 15 WiP + 6 PhD (150 min)

[WiP – Board 2-01] Learning to plan coastal futures under uncertainty: Evaluating the educational effectiveness of the serious videogame “Coastal Challenge”
Paola Tanguy, Mathilde Luna Joly, Chiara Trozzo and Giulia Galluccio
[WiP – Board 2-02] Fostering Creativity and Community in a Second Language STEAM Setting through Edularp Co-Design
Olivia Fischer, Hilda Tellioğlu, Wolfgang Weinlich and René Röpke
[WiP – Board 2-03] Designing a Mobile Game for SDGs Education: Insights from a Participatory Design Process with Young Users
Lucia Vigoroso, Federico Gallucci and Niccolò Pampuro
[WiP – Board 2-04] Learning through AI-assisted educational game design: Investigating students’ learning experiences and creative agency
Eemeli Eiste, Antti Koskinen and Kristian Kiili
[WiP – Board 2-05] Breath of the Bow: an archery game on mindful breathing
Waded Oudhuis, Diana Banță, Charlie Ciaś, Sahar Marossi, Boris Pavić, Maarten van der Weide, Tzu-Hsin Hsieh, Amir Zaidi, Wendy Sturrock, Fengshi Zheng and Rafael Bidarra
[WiP – Board 2-06] Developing a Decision-Support Tool for Gameful Systems: An Iterative Approach to User Study Planning
Reyhaneh Ahmadi, Simone Bassanelli, Enrico Bolognesi, Yifeng Li, Nataliya Zhigalina and Luca Turchet
[WiP – Board 2-07] GenLink – Infiltration: an inter-generational coop game about online safety
Sieb Scherpbier, Jasper Heijne, Philippe Henry, Paul Lindhorst, Omar Thabet, Amir Zaidi, Iolanda Bernardino and Rafael Bidarra
[WiP – Board 2-08] Remixing Games for Participatory Learning: Pre-service Teachers’ Reflections on Feasibility, Barriers, and Potential
Barbara Göbl and Petra Francesca Weixelbraun
[WiP – Board 2-09] Children’s Gameplay Experiences in an Unplugged Serious Game for Primary Programming Education
Bernadette Spieler, Henry Chen, Janine Truetsch, Larissa Meyer-Baron and Céline Scheier
[WiP – Board 2-10] A Pilot Feasibility Study of Music-Therapist-in-the-Loop Serious Games for People with Mild Cognitive Impairment
Anna Kandylidou, Georgios Spanos, Stelios Pantelopoulos, Despina Psimaris, Charalampos Karagiannidis, Filippos Vlachos, Konstantinos Votis and Magda Tsolaki
[WiP – Board 2-11] Design of an Educational Board Game for Fostering Future Orientation among Secondary School Students: Insights from the Exploratory Design Phase
Zsófia Kocsis and Gabriella Pusztai
[WiP – Board 2-12] Interactions Between Emotions and Reflection in a Game to Learn about Machine Learning Ethics
Cecile Hardebolle, Helena Kovacs, Maria Carla Di Vincenzo, Ester Simkova, Alexandre Pinazza, Patrick Jermann and Roland Tormey
[WiP – Board 2-13] Leveling Up IRL: How to Foster Wisdom Through Video Games
Imke Alenka Harbig and Judith Glück
[WiP – Board 2-14] Towards Shared, Open Infrastructure for Kanji Learning Games Analytics: A Work in Progress
David Stiftl, David Plecher and Christian Eichhorn
[PhD – Board 2-15] Facilitation in Serious Games for Public Service Design: Towards a Cross-Domain Framework and Practitioner Toolkit
Anna Sioni, Fabio Nonino and Vanissa Wanick
[PhD – Board 2-16] Educators as Game Masters: Leveraging TTRPGs to Empower Higher Education Instructors in Gameful Learning Design
Alejandro Velázquez-Treviño and Leonardo David Glasserman-Morales
[PhD – Board 2-17] A Course-Integrated Gamified Learning Environment for Structural Learning in Architectural Education
Nisanur Özçelik and Sema Alaçam
[PhD – Board 2-18] Fostering Game Design in k-12 education: A Framework for Teachers’ Game Design Literacy
Ana Esther Rodrigues de Camargo, Kaiju Kangas and Sini Davies
[PhD – Board 2-19] From Game-Based Learning to an On-Site Serious Heritage Game: A Doctoral Research Line for Archaeological Parks with Limited Visible Evidence
Gianni Furiassi, Alessandro Terrosi, Stefano Paolo Mucci and Clarissa Pellegrino
[PhD – Board 2-20] Designing Play Around Architectural Constraints: A PhD Study of Assembly Language Learning Games
Ernesto Rivera-Alvarado and Saul Guadamuz

15:30 – 16:30

Cognition, Problem Solving and Self-Regulation – 4 papers (60 min)

[15:30 – 15:45] Problem-Solving Profiles in the Puzzle Game Baba Is You: Limited Evidence for Onboarding Effects
Zack Carpenter, Nasim Eshgarf and Craig Anderson
[15:45 – 16:00] How successful are groups at planning together relative to individuals? A study with the serious game Tik Tik.
Cvetomir Dimov and Daphne Bavelier
[16:00 – 16:15] Structured Onboarding for Autonomous Task Engagement in Gamified Child Assessment
Angela Pasqualotto, Manon Bochud, Jessy Damas, Zeno Menestrina and Daphne Bavelier
[16:15 – 16:30] Where You Struggle Matters: Context-Specific Self-Regulated Learning Behaviors during Game-Based Learning Predict Learning Outcomes
Yuxuan Zhi, Qiyang Lin, Garam A. Lee and Elizabeth B. Cloude

16:30 – 17:30

Playful Activity (60 min)

17:30 – 18:30

AI, Learning Analytics and Adaptive Games – 4 papers (60 min)

[17:30 – 17:45] Designing for Breakdown: Failure Modes in AI-Mediated Implicit Game-Based Learning
Julie Madelen Madshaven and Christian Walter Peter Omlin
[17:45 – 18:00] Discovering Behavioral Dimensions in Educational Quiz Game Using Interaction Logs
Mehnuma Tabassum Omar, Nafisul Kiron and Julita Vassileva
[18:00 – 18:15] Simulating Stakeholder Dynamics in MLOps: An LLM-Agent-Based Serious Game for Collaborative Learning
Michal Slupczynski, Bela Veltrup and Stefan Decker
[18:15 – 18:30] Beyond one-size-fits-all: a systematic literature review of adaptive gamification strategies and frameworks in the age of AI
Brunella Botte, Giada Marinensi, Giancarlo De Matteis, Sander Bakkes, Henk Aarts and Remco Veltkamp

18:30 – 19:30

SGS General Assembly (60 min)

Evening

Social dinner with awards

Friday 20 November (Click to expand/collapse)

08:00 – 09:00

Registration

09:00 – 10:00

Keynote 3: Prof. Amon Rapp (45+15 min)

10:00 – 10:30

30-min Coffee break

10:30 – 12:00

Game-Based Learning for STEM and Classroom Practice – 6 papers (90 min)

[10:30 – 10:45] From Misconceptions to Playable Conflicts: Designing Physics-Integrated Serious Game Mechanics for Conceptual Change
Katharina Richter and Michael Kickmeier-Rust
[10:45 – 11:00] HEPscape!: Designing a Scalable Educational Escape Room for Particle Physics
Matteo Bauce and Valentina Mariani
[11:00 – 11:15] Supporting Dyslexic Learners in Computational Thinking Through a Serious Game with Text-to-Speech
Rihab El Mouhtani, Mathieu Muratet and Gianluca Murgia
[11:15 – 11:30] Soft Competition in Tangible Game-Based Learning for Primary Computing Education
Ramona Beinstingel, Tim Sommer and Stephan Krusche
[11:30 – 11:45] Musical Serious Games: A Systematic Mapping of Pedagogical and Game Design Foundations
Paulo Gabriel Alves Fontana, Tadeu Moreira Classe, Eduardo Gomes de Oliveira and Ronney Moreira Castro
[11:45 – 12:00] A Gamified VR Escape Room for VR Privacy Awareness Education
Fabian Hamm and Enes Yigitbas

12:00 – 12:30

Closing

GALA Conf 2026