by Jacqueline Rother, the German Press Agency (dpa), Germany.
A classroom transforms into a stage for an augmented reality adventure. Students point their phones at walls and floors, and suddenly fake headlines, manipulated videos and conspiracy chats appear. To move forward, they have to collaborate and fact-check. This is Escape Fake – a free to play escape room game in augmented reality (AR) that turns media literacy into an immersive, hands-on experience.
The setting
The game takes place in a near future in which disinformation and deepfakes dominate. Guided by Hannah, a fictional hacker from the future, players work to reconstruct historical events and set the record straight with verified facts. As they progress, the mechanics of digital manipulation become increasingly visible – and so do the ways to expose them.
During the game, participants work through simulated chat conversations and social media posts, tracing claims back to their sources, checking for missing context and examining how language is deliberately exaggerated to mislead. What begins as a puzzle quickly turns into practice: step by step, they apply the same routines fact-checkers use to separate reliable information from false claims.
The game
Escape Fake unfolds (so far) in three chapters. A short introduction familiarises players with the format and storyline in about half an hour, while the main rooms each last between 40 and 60 minutes. (The Escape Fake team is working on the construction of a fourth chapter!) Designed for young people aged 12 and up, it can be played in schools, youth groups, or non-formal learning settings – even at home on a rainy day. All that is needed is a smartphone or tablet to download the free app and a set of markers to unlock the AR world of media literacy.
From play to learning
The fast pace and sense of discovery make the game engaging, but they also create space for reflection. Research has shown that learning through game elements significantly boosts motivation, engagement and knowledge acquisition. Many young people identify as gamers, and they are the first generation to grow up with augmented and virtual reality as part of their daily lives. Escape Fake builds on this environment by applying digital game principles that stimulate both cognitive and emotional learning. Players strengthen their ability to question and assess information critically – skills they can carry back into their everyday media use. It is precisely this combination of play and pedagogy that has earned the project several awards, including the European Youth Information Award and the Austrian SDG Award.
Toolkit for teachers
To ensure the experience does not end with the game itself, Escape Fake comes with a comprehensive toolkit for teachers. Lesson plans, worksheets, presentations, and follow-up activities help bring the topics into classroom discussions. The follow-up activities, for example, are co-developed with students and teachers to ensure the input matches the actual needs of the users. Based on experiential learning, the toolkit offers educators different ways of approaching disinformation and connecting the game to their teaching practice. Both the markers for the game and the toolkit are available in 8 languages – German, English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and Bulgarian – and can be downloaded free of charge at escapefake.org.
The partners
The fact-checking team at the German Press Agency (dpa) works together with the Austrian design and technology studio Polycular, which created the game, and the Dutch Futurelab Waag to further develop Escape Fake. This collaboration brings together creative design, innovation in education and journalistic expertise to make media literacy accessible and engaging for young people across Europe.
Author
Jacqueline Rother is a project manager in the fact-checking team at the German Press Agency (dpa), Germany’s leading news agency.
She is responsible for several major international media literacy projects, including the Teen Fact-Checking Network Europe (TFCN) and ThinkTwice.
She also works as a fact-checking trainer, sharing her expertise with diverse target groups and addressing a broad spectrum of fact-checking topics.
