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The solution to world peace could be at our fingertips, thanks to a new gaming experience developed by conflict resolution experts at the University of Glasgow.

CEASEFIRE! is an immersive 2D video game that offers an alternative to wargaming, encouraging players to protect civilians and resolve conflict through non-violent and peaceful means.

Developed by academics, gamers, artists, international ceasefire experts, and young peacebuilders in Scotland, CEASEFIRE! assigns players the mission of negotiating a ‘Back to School’ ceasefire that will protect education from attack in armed conflict.

The game’s action takes place in a parallel universe in which blob-like beings - who change shape to signal their emotional states - are engaged in a ‘war over colour’. The fictional setting and use of colour as a metaphor are intended to spark curiosity and prompt debate amongst players.

Rebecca Sutton, a Professor of International Law with a practitioner background in peacebuilding and humanitarian aid, came up with the initial idea for CEASEFIRE! based on her research into the role of law and emotions in humanitarian negotiations.

With funding from the University of Glasgow (Knowledge Exchange Funds and Academic Research and Returners Support funds), Prof Sutton formulated the CEASEFIRE! peace game project together with Daisy Abbott and Sarah Ahmad from the Glasgow School of Art, and industry partner Education Evolved. The team was supported by the Glasgow Games and Gaming Lab and was influenced by the INASSEM project and the game SEvEN.

This interdisciplinary team collaboratively drove forward a co-design process that engaged external participants in five separate co-design events: two were held online with international ceasefire practitioners and researchers, two took place in-person in Glasgow with young people interested in peacebuilding and gaming, and the final joint expert-youth meeting developed dialogue and scripting.

"These co-creators of the game - and I think it’s important to emphasize that the young people, too, are ‘experts’ in their own right - were instrumental in helping to identify its goals, to imagine the universe of the game and the characters that would populate it, and determine what kinds of problems the player would have to solve" said Professor Sutton.

"Despite its huge popularity and potential for learning, game developers don’t always pay attention to the pedagogy of gaming - how players respond, learn and react. CEASEFIRE! will offer this opportunity, whilst proving that humanitarian activities and non-violent forms of conflict resolution can be challenging, strategic and exciting. Gaming requires huge amounts of creative energy, and I wanted to see where that could go when applied to peace gaming. With CEASEFIRE! we are exploring a different kind of hero’s or heroine’s journey."

She added: "Now more than ever, the world needs people who can peacefully resolve and even transform conflicts. I wanted to pose a challenge to wargaming, and CEASEFIRE! flips the traditional wargame concept."

Emotions play a central role in CEASEFIRE! - an area that Rebecca is particularly interested in.

"Players in CEASEFIRE! get to improve their emotional intelligence and understanding of international laws relating to the protection of education and civilians in armed conflict," she commented. "It questions the idea that emotions are separate from reason and from rational negotiation strategies, and that so-called ‘hard skills’ are more valuable than ‘soft skills’. The game shows that you need to be able to effectively ‘read the room’, including both the law and other people, in order to deliver humanitarian services and help protect civilians from violence. Succeeding at these things without de-humanizing your (armed) counterpart is also crucial."

The development of CEASEFIRE! includes a strong female contingent, something the team believes will play a key role in the success of the game.

Education Evolved’s Matt Leeper explained: "Some 85% of people under 40 enjoy gaming, and over half are women, a statistic that may surprise people. Stigma means females don’t tend to discuss the games they play, but they have a lot to contribute, and it’s really important that we listen to them. Many of the team roles in CEASEFIRE! - including the advisory board, testers, graphic illustrator and researcher - are held by females and I think this is very much reflected in the game."

Plans are underway to roll CEASEFIRE! out globally, so that educators and trainers in the humanitarian and peacebuilding fields can use it in their classrooms and training spaces. An Educator’s Toolkit is being disseminated that will assist with this, providing detailed lesson plans for different categories of learners.

The development team is also programming CEASEFIRE’s analytics so that researchers will be able to track player decision-making, and investigate the choices made under duress.

Professor Sutton has been sharing the game across the world, spending time at the Thai-Myanmar border, where youth living in exile from the conflict in Myanmar played it as a group. Soon she will travel to Nairobi, where the game will be demonstrated in the “Solutions Showcase” of the Safe Schools Declaration conference hosted by Kenya and Norway. This is about protecting education from attack in armed conflict, and the team will highlight the fact that the game is about negotiating a 'back to school' ceasefire, drawing on the Safe Schools Declaration amongst other international legal and political instruments.

The CEASEFIRE! team has also partnered with the NGO CIVIC to begin work on a new game for the Beyond Compliance Consortium, a £5million academic-NGO partnership funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. That game is designed to serve as a training tool for diplomats and humanitarians working to encourage armed actors to restrain from violence.

What humanitarian practitioners are saying about CEASEFIRE!:

"CEASEFIRE! is an excellent introduction to the science and art of humanitarian negotiations, providing a sense of the different aptitudes, skills and technical knowledge that underpins negotiations" (Dominique Gassauer, of United Nations OCHA).

"I believe that practitioner organizations will really welcome the kind of creative training approach that CEASEFIRE! delivers. The use of such playful, immersive, and interactive forms of engagement will bring a new dimension to teaching International Humanitarian Law" (Stephen Wilkinson, Director, International Humanitarian Law Centre).

"Engaging with armed groups is complex and delicate work. CEASEFIRE! opens up new horizons for education and training in the field, drawing attention to the emotional dimension of negotiations" (Florian Weigand, Co-Director, Centre on Armed Groups).

 

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First published: 7 November 2025