Silesian University of Technology

GBL in Urban Planning Education: Case Studies of Metropoli and Katopolis Games

This study examines game-based learning (GBL) as a tool for teaching urban planning and architecture, using two educational card and board games developed at the Faculty of Architecture of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland.

• Metropoli and Katopolis are educational card and board games developed at the Faculty of Architecture of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland, using Monopoly-style mechanics and standard 52-card decks where each card represents a municipality or city district with statistics on population, area, green space, water areas, and bicycle infrastructure.
• The municipality card data is drawn from public sources such as Statistics Poland, and the games aim to help learners grasp interdependencies between urban functions, transport, and public space through experimenting with spatial scenarios.
• The authors argue that game-based learning remains underexplored in architecture and urban planning, with few in-depth studies of effectiveness, coherent didactic models, or comparative learning outcomes, and few games designed from the outset around explicit educational goals.