Conference Opening
Grab a coffee and join us in the main auditorium for the opening remarks for Meaningful Play 2026.
9:00 AM
9:30 AM
Keynote: Care to Play?: Gaming with Heart and Designing for Compassion
Games show us what kinds of worlds are possible. Are they filled with toxicity, cruelty, and hate, or do they embed support, healing, and care? Drawing from her latest books, NSF research, and UNICEF project on safety in games, Dr. Kat Schrier explores how care might (or might not) be embedded in a game’s rules, mechanics, interfaces, communities, and systems. Through examples of harmful, healing, and transformative play, she will explore the often-invisible design decisions that shape belonging, identity, safety, and connection. We will question how games might be designed to be more caring communities, but also how they might show us how to create a more compassionate world.
10:30 AM
Coffee Break + Sticky Note Poll
Stretch your legs, pour a fresh cup of coffee and join us for a sticky note poll! These break time sticky note polls are brought to you in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon University Library Student Advisory Council, whose focus this year is on games and community. Through these sticky note polls, we hope to gather data about how people engage with games that will be used by our students and librarians to improve CMU University Libraries’ Role Playing Game Collection, as well as to inform future programming and activations at the Center for Transformational Play
11:00 AM
Educational Game Design for Everyone
Epistle Maps, An Exquisite Hamlet
Papers 1 - Player Communities & Play Cultures
12:30 PM
Lunch Break
1:30 PM
Collapsing Quibits: A Quantum Themed Card Game
Gaming, Learning + Making: Creating knowledge in teaching and research through games + game design
Ludic Narrans
Talks 1 - Games in the Classroom
3:00 PM
Coffee Break
In keeping with the MSU tradition of a sweet treat during afternoon coffee, we invite you to join us for a sweet and a coffee. Sponsored by Schell Games (https://schellgames.com/).
3:30 PM
Considering a Serious Game’s Afterlife: Designing for Reuse, Research, and Connected Community via Playable Conversation Systems
Gridiron Bots: Reinventing Tabletop Football for STEM Learning
Papers 2 - Play, Emotion & Wellbeing
Persistent Pervasive Play
5:00 PM
Dinner Break
7:00 PM
Game Exhibition - Night 1
How exciting! There were so many games submissions this year that we had to split the traditional Meaningful Play games exhibition across 2 nights. Come sample this year's crop of games. Join us for delicious appetizers and finger foods from Salem's Market Grill, a Pittsburgh favorite.
Pittsburgh Playtest Joins Meaningful Play
Pittsburgh Playtest is a monthly event bringing together Pittsburgh-area game makers working on unpublished games with local players and families interested in playtesting. Meet members of the Pittsburgh game design community.