Game design for promoting counterfactual thinking

We describe the first iteration of an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) designed to lead players into a newly enfranchised relationship with history and engage them in scientific thinking and information literacy practices. We found that the points at which the game's mythology blurred the lines between fact and fiction prompted middle school students to move beyond rote memorization of content. Instead, they began to question, analyze, and make hypotheses about the data presented. However, striking a meaningful balance between "true" history and imagined events poses new design challenges. We present a formative typology of counterfactual design patterns that can help designers, educators, and players locate interesting fault lines in reality that facilitate the expansion of ARG mythologies.