AmendMe: A Tabletop Game to Teach the European Parliament's Legislative Process

The paper presents AmendMe, a low-cost tabletop adaptation of the European Parliament Role-Play Game (EP RPG), designed to teach the EU legislative process to young people and foster civic engagement. The authors argue that the existing physical and virtual versions of the EP RPG are constrained by travel, large group sizes, reliable internet, and up-to-date hardware, limiting access for rural schools and extracurricular or home use. AmendMe reduces the group size to two to four players and removes technology dependence, while retaining core elements such as committee-style discussion, amendment voting, and reenactment of decision-making and compromise. The game was developed through a research-for-design process that combined a student ideation course at Tallinn University, iterative mechanic and content design with spreadsheet-based balancing, and a paper prototype.

The pilot involved 15 Master's students in the Digital Learning Games programme, playing in four groups for an average of 45 minutes, with an online questionnaire and abductive content analysis of open responses. Participants rated overall satisfaction at 4.07 out of 5, slightly below their ratings for the physical (4.45) and virtual (4.04) versions, though one participant rated it 1 out of 5 and described it as boring and text-heavy. Game events and group discussions were the most appreciated components, while public speaking and voting drew criticism. Feedback identified several problems: amendments were too uncontroversial and were accepted too readily, scoring favoured easy wins, some group positions were unclear, and the rules felt complex to some players.

The authors acknowledge the small, expert-heavy sample, which differs from the intended 16-20 year-old audience, and conclude that AmendMe shows promise as a freely distributable, infrastructure-light civic education tool. They identify next steps including rebalancing mechanics and content, testing with the target age group, assessing accessibility for players with dyslexia or colour blindness, measuring learning outcomes and attitudes toward civic participation, and translating the game into multiple languages.