by Larysa Nazarenko, CSO Segalor, Ukraine
What happens when a game stops being just a teaching tool and starts becoming civic infrastructure? This is the question that has guided the development of the Scanarix Media Game from its earliest prototypes to the implementation cycles now running with children, families and educators across Ukraine, Europe and internationally.
Scanarix is a multilingual game on media and information literacy (MIL) for players aged 10 and up, including intergenerational groups. Scanarix was developed by Larysa Nazarenko in collaboration with the Ukrainian CSO Segalor, a member of the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance, PRISMA European network, and CIVICUS. It is both an offline quest-based game with board-game elements and a web-based interactive experience. Currently in English, Ukrainian and Greek, its scenario-driven gameplay, collaborative tasks and structured reflection cover the full spectrum of contemporary media challenges: AI-generated content, visibility mechanisms, narrative framing and the political economy of attention. Implementation with Ukrainian children in Greece and with educators in formal and non-formal settings has shown strong educational impact, increased motivation to engage with media and information literacy and real shifts in how participants approach information online.
Scanarix is designed to grow beyond a game and become a self-sustaining civic infrastructure for media-literate community building across borders. The game is designed to operate across three interconnected pathways: as a standalone game with internally developed scenarios, as a methodological core enabling collaborative co-creation of new games with participants on shared design principles and core mechanics, and as a framework for developing additional scenarios in partnership with external collaborators integrated directly into the platform.
We welcome collaboration with partners interested in co-creating scenarios, hosting implementation cycles or contributing to the development of the in-game collaborative evaluation tool, or joining us as players to experience the game. Please email: scanarixmediagame@proton.me
