Demoplay: Exploring the Impact of Democratic Innovation Simulation on Entertainment, Learning and Interpersonal Trust

This paper explores the impact of a role-playing simulation of a green participatory budgeting process in the fictional city of Empaville. The game lasts two hours and replicate the typical phases of a PB process: deliberative ideation, competitive campaigning, and voting. Participants are assigned distinct roles, each tailored to embody the recurrent conflicts inherent in real-world participatory budgeting scenarios. This intentional inclusion of conflicts not only enhances the realism of the simulation but also serves as a catalyst for engaging discussions, strategic decision-making, and conflict resolution. Furthermore, participants are divided in three fictional city districts that compete to receive the final allocation of funding. Thus, each group must first overcome internal conflicts to propose a project that might be competitive in the campaign and voting phase. By closely mirroring the dynamics of authentic participatory budgeting processes, the simulation creates a holistic and immersive learning experience for participants that teaches experientially what PB is and its advantages and disadvantages. In the paper we leverage the results of an exit survey deployed in 5 implementations (for a total of around 60 respondents) engaging civil servants, academics and students in the UK, Italy, and Morocco. The survey investigates the impact of game design elements on the perception of entertainment, learning about PB processes and the generation of interpersonal trust. The impact of game design elements on the perceived entertainment value is a pivotal aspect of our study. By examining how engaging the simulation is for participants, we can discern the effectiveness of gamification in the context of pedagogy and democratic innovations, and we can optimize the game itself. The study contributes to the growing literature on role playing games as a teaching and engagement tool.