Socialudo: the power of serious games to break down barriers and foster meaningful collaboration

“By collaborating, we can tackle shared challenges, create meaningful solutions, and ensure better outcomes for communities.”

The founders of Socialudo, Professor Vikki McCall and Professor Alasdair Rutherford, bring together over 30 years of experience in research and translating research insights into impactful, collaborative solutions. They design, develop and deliver bespoke serious games, training, and events to help organisations tackle hard problems and future-proof society, tackling a range of big societal challenges, from planning for the ageing population to climate change impact. The objective – to remove barriers and foster meaningful collaboration and strategic thinking.

Their flagship serious game ‘Hopetown’ is specifically designed to bring health, housing and social care together, break down silo working and promote a joined up approach to service planning and delivery. This immersive and engaging approach to training delivery enables professionals to explore complex challenges, develop shared solutions, and build stronger, more integrated ways of working.

Key to their success is stakeholder involvement and working closely with communities, including residents and tenants, to ensure their games reflect lived experiences and deliver genuine impact. But it’s a challenging time: the housing sector faces immense financial pressure, with increasing maintenance costs, net-zero commitments, affordable social housing in short supply and growing homelessness. At the same time, our ageing population is expanding. In this environment, organisations often struggle to justify preventative spending. Socialudo’s challenge is to help stakeholders step back from immediate crises and see the long-term benefits of investing in serious games like ‘Hopetown’. Socialudo are working to prevent planning failures, overspending, and fragmented service delivery — while also creating a more resilient and equitable society.

They are keen to emphasise that “it is important to remind everyone that we are all on the same team!” They have worked in collaboration with numerous statutory sector partners, including Local Authorities, Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) and Integrated Joint Boards (IJBs) across the UK and have recently adapted Hopetown for local organisational use, offering it as a training tool for staff induction, team building, leadership development, strategic planning, and community engagement.

Although they are still building their reputation and network they are clear that relationships and trust are essential. They meet their clients where they are, offer opportunities to explore their approach through complementary sessions, and know that partnerships take time to build. They are also keen to listen and value the insights of participants and stakeholders. This continuous feedback ensures their games remain relevant and impactful. They are eager to connect across health, housing, social care, housing development, and planning and believe that “by collaborating, we can tackle shared challenges, create meaningful solutions, and ensure better outcomes for communities – in short, we can make a real impact through the power of play.”

Explore the work of Socialudo via their website – https://socialudo.org/

You can read all Connected Communities case studies here: https://www.alliance-scotland.org.uk/blog/case_studies/?projects=connected-communities