Games Workshops

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Push Your Luck – More Games Design with the Rock Trust and Fast Forward

It has been brilliant to visit our friends at the Rock Trust again in partnership with Fast Forward to explore topics of gambling awareness and risk-taking through creative digital sessions.

Over a series of sessions young game designers from the Rock Trust collaborated to design Push Your Luck, a collection of mini-gamesexploring gambling addiction, advertising, and its effects on daily life.

Earn money with the platformer (avoid the loan sharks), and spend it gambling – or practice self-care with your personal Tamagotchi.

Thank you to everyone involved!

You can check out the games made with Construct 3 here:

Click to play game

Or play the game below – click on the window then use your arrow keys to play!

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Tinderbox at Youth Link Scotland Digital Youth Work Conference 2025

It was brilliant to visit Youth Link Scotland‘s Digital Youth Work Conference again this year, and also for us to join in to lead a Bitsy game design workshop and panel discussing games design and youth & community work. 

The conference is always a great opportunity to connect with colleagues and peers, and share thinking and insight on the wide world of digital youth work. 

We had a great time and loved meeting everyone. Massive thanks to all involved with putting together a fantastic day!  

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Bitsy Games Design at PHEW (Broomhouse Hub)

We had such a lovely time at PHEW (People’s Health & Emotional Wellbeing), where we visited to make little games using Bitsy!

We felt so welcomed and were totally blown away by the creativity and skill there.

A big thanks to Barry and the group for a great evening!

You can check out the games made with Bitsy here:

Click to play games

Or play the games below – click on the window then use your arrow keys to play!

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What We Do Now Gathering 2025 (The Stove Network)

Thank you to The Stove Network for inviting us to join the What We Do Now Gathering in Stranraer.

What We Do Now is a growing network of hubs and practitioners and partners passionate about the power of creativity in supporting communities to shape their own futures.

Jack, Roz and Luci from Tinderbox joined the February gathering of creative community leaders to talk about online/hybrid projects and our use of games design and digital arts in our work.

It was a great day with a fantastic group of people! 

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We also had a workshop learning about game-making tool Bitsy, and everyone collaborated to make a set of tiny games/game ideas – which you can check out here!

Click to play games

Or play the games below – click on the window then use your arrow keys to play!

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Drylaw & Leith Games Clubs 2024!

We’ve had a totally brilliant time with our two Games Club groups this term, and the young game designers have made two new incredible games!

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Using game-making tools like Bitsy and Construct 3, each group have created a game collaboratively – Drylaw Games Club created Household Nonsense, a collection of mini-games inspired by everyday life and tasks (made wacky and fun); and Leith Games Club have made IDK: Maybe Fun?, a challenging & creative space adventure!

Both groups also incorporated custom, hand-made game controllers to play the games with as part of the final showcase events celebrating their work with family and friends.

Huge well done to all of the Games Clubs participants and tutor team who have made the sessions so brilliant with their enthusiasm, creativity and teamwork! 

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Play the games we made here – click on the window then use your arrow keys to play!

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Games Design with SCOREscotland and the National Museum of Scotland

Written by Doska (Lead Artist)

From October to November, we hosted a series of workshops in collaboration with SCOREscotland and the National Museum of Scotland, where young people designed their own video games. These sessions were inspired by the Game On exhibition, which showcased the history and cultural impact of video games, featuring over 100 playable titles from classics like Space Invaders to Minecraft. The exhibition looks at gaming’s ties to music, film, and technology-inspired games exploring themes like climate change and storytelling.

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Across four workshops, participants explored the exhibition and learned how to make games using platforms like Bitsy and Construct 3. They incorporated hand-drawn art, digital designs, and even photographs of museum artefacts into their creations, blending history and modern storytelling. The games were imaginative and thoughtful, reflecting a wide range of ideas and techniques.

One game, Forest Kite, guided players through a woodland adventure inspired by the history of pixie darts and the theme of discovery. Another, the Museum of the Future, envisioned a museum filled with “artefacts” from 2024, inviting players to think about climate change and its impact. In Deep Wooden Journey, players navigated a kite through forests teeming with intriguing creatures.

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Having access to museum artefacts added a unique dimension to the process. Participants drew inspiration from objects on display and brought them into their work, combining historical context with their creative visions. The workshops weren’t just about learning game design—they became a space to explore how games can tell stories and spark conversations about the world around us.

Play the games we made here – click on the window then use your arrow keys to play!

Forest Kite Poster

Museum of the Future Poster Updated

Deep Wooden Journey Poster

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Bitsy Games Design at LGBTY Scotland

Recently the Tinderbox team have been dropping in to visit folks at LGBTY Scotland and make games together – here’s what one of the game designers had to say!

I was motivated to join in with the project because I was looking to join something to keep me preoccupied on a Friday afternoon and the games lab looked engaging and interesting. I enjoyed the workshops, I learned a lot about how the Bitsy system works and loads of little technology tips and tricks I wasn’t aware of before!

It was good to work with Tinderbox and Roz, I was able to get help when I got stuck and she was very engaging with all the tasks we were doing and encouraged everyone, helping us create the game influenced by all of our ideas. If we were going to it do it next time, I would probably suggest a longer time period to make the game, or more frequent sessions, other than that it was lots of fun!!

Thanks so much to everyone for welcoming us along to LGBTY!

Check out the game they made here, called ‘Home in Time for T‘:

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North Edinburgh Local Legends – Music & Games Jam

Over the summer, we piloted a new, collaborative project between the Tinderbox community music and games team, focussing on local legends from the North Edinburgh and Leith areas. Working from Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre, 9 participants collaborated on creating new music and a video game, brainstorming who their local inspirations were, and what inspires them about their local area. We developed mind maps of local inspiration, and a physical map of North Edinburgh & Leith. 
 
We finished off the week with a showcase at the Tinderbox Lab/Wee Hub at Ocean Terminal on the final day of the project, joined by family and friends, where the music team performed Shells of the North against the It Grows game as an interactive visual backdrop to the music, rounding off the day with a brilliant open mic.
Play the game 'It Grows' here!
Play the game ‘It Grows’ here!
The music team creating brand new song "Shells of the North"!
The music team creating brand new song “Shells of the North”!
The games team creating brand new game "It Grows"!
The games team creating brand new game “It Grows”!
Nicola in front of the 'It Grows' game, with song lyrics for 'Shells of the North'!
Nicola in front of the ‘It Grows’ game, with song lyrics for ‘Shells of the North’!

About the Music

From this, young people who wanted to focus on music split off into groups, including music production, melody and lyric-writing, and chord sequences. We all worked off similar themes: Granton Harbour, West Pilton, Ice Cream, Gardening, Skate Parks and Home, to build a beat, chords, and develop melodic and lyrical ideas. We also had a young person develop a rap section for the song.
 
The song: Shells of the North, was written with the idea that young people’s shell collections grow over time collected from Granton Harbour, representative of their memories and growing up in North Edinburgh. This was nicely tied into the games-design of: It Grows, inspired by community gardeners, like those at Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre. 
 
As the game took shape, the music team practiced a performance of Shells of the North, ready for a showcase at the Tinderbox Lab, at Ocean Terminal on the final day of the project. Invited family and friends attended, and we piloted the projection of the interactive game, It Grows, behind a live performance of Shells of the North. Young people finished the day with a brilliant open mic.
Getting ready for the final showcase!
Getting ready for the final showcase!
Showing off the game!
Showing off the game!
Building 3D models for our game!
Building 3D models for our game!

About the Game

The games team during the summer project worked together to come up with a game that could be played alongside the composition of the songwriting team – a backdrop for the music that would function almost like an interactive music video. 
 
We had a wee games design team working on the game itself, and we decided it’d be cool to make a game where you take care of a plant, helping it to grow. This was partly inspired by talking about local gardening communities, and we tied this into the theme of North Edinburgh by putting the plant by a window, and on each scene we see a different backdrop of North Edinburgh… As if you are living in the city, taking care of your home. 
 
It was such a cool little game, and everyone involved put so much effort focus and concentration into the making of it! With only two days to put to put it all together too! They did such a great job.
 
Here’s a wee insight into how we did it… 
  • We began by brainstorming a few ideas, with the connecting theme being Edinburgh, Local Legends, Green, and Nature! 
  • Once we settled on an idea we all quite liked, we made a storyboard so we could see how we all thought the game should look.
  • We compared all those ideas, found the connections between them all, and grasped a shared sense of what the game will be. 
  • We then wrote up a big list of Assets (these are items that will make up the game, like characters, objects and backgrounds), contemplating all the possible things we will need for the game… And then we got to work designing them! 
  • We opened up Construct 3 and Pixelart and started creating all our assets and getting them into the game engine (which brings all the assets together into a working game)! We also kept in touch with our songwriters, to ensure we were all heading in the same direction and all happy with the content
You can hear the song and play the game here!

With thanks to

Our friends at Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre and The Wee Hub, family & friends, and everyone who took part!
Play the game 'It Grows' here!
Play the game ‘It Grows’ here!
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Designing an Escape Room with Granton Youth!

Over a few months, Doska from Tinderbox has been collaborating with young people from Granton Youth to explore the concept of escape rooms and how they work. Our goal was to create an escape room inspired by the history of North Edinburgh, to take to North Edinburgh Community Festival on Sat 11th May!

At one of the Granton Youth escape room workshops, we visited Granton Hub and met with Tamsin, who showed us the Hub archives. We looked through old photos, newspapers, and historical records. A few stories from these archives became the starting point for our escape room.

We discovered which buildings and landmarks still stand today, like the shop Jubilee. We learned about the history of trains that transported goods from Africa, which sometimes had unexpected travellers – tortoises that later found homes with families in Granton. We also discovered that the Granton Hub was once home to Modelvic, the oldest purpose-built car factory in the UK!

One particularly fascinating story we uncovered was about the Otter Boat, which highlighted more recent events in Granton that connect to its past. In 2022 Granton Community Garden & Madelvic History Group, in collaboration with The School of Ancient Crafts, Edinburgh, recreated a 9m Iron-Age log boat using traditional ancient tools!

The group decided to base their escape room theme on these stories, especially focusing on the tortoises and the Otter Boat. The theme was “Journey into the Past,” where participants are transported back in time and must solve a mystery to return to the present.

During our time at Granton Youth, we brainstormed ideas and tested puzzles, which led to an incredible showcase of our escape room at the North Edinburgh Community Festival! The competition was fierce, with 18 teams taking on the challenge to solve the Granton mystery!

This project has undoubtedly left a lasting impact and we hope may even become part of the Granton Hub archives.

A big thanks to the Granton Youth team and Doska for a fantastic collaboration!

Granton Youth researching the history of the area at Granton Hub Archives
Granton Youth researching the history of the area at Granton Hub Archives
Tinderbox team playing the final escape room at NECF 2024!
Tinderbox team playing the final escape room at NECF 2024!
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Ice Games: an international creative collaboration with Uummannaq Polar Institute!

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Ice Games: a collaboration between Tinderbox Collective and Uummannaq Polar Institute 

We’re so excited to be part of one of nine projects set to receive funding from the Scottish Government as part of the third annual round of the Arctic Connections Fund.

We’re collaborating with our friends at the Uummannaq Polar Institute in Uummannaq, Greenland to create some games inspired by ice & icy landscapes. Our collaboration started back in August, and so far we’ve been getting to know each other through skype calls and exchanging creative work. 

We’ve shared some of our Tinderbox Games Club games for young people in Uummannaq to play, as well as introducing them to some of our fave game-making tools (Interactive storytelling tool Twine, and pixel game maker Bitsy). 

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We’ve read their incredible comic: AARNUAQ – THE AMULET, which was created by children from The Children’s Home in Uummannaq with Kim Wendt & Søren Alfred Olsen. It tells the story of Albert, a young orphaned man who lives as a hunter in Greenland, and we’ve started to work together to make the comic into an interactive game! It’s been great fun seeing the comic come to life, and collaborating with the children in Uummannaq to explore how to make their comic world interactive. 

In our Hybrid Games Club we’ve started to explore ice as a theme, setting two games on an icy planet Neptune: a platformer game where you play as a melting ice block, and a survival card game about Penguins. 

We’re SO excited for collaborations & conversations to continue over the coming months, and looking forward to hosting a group from Uummannaq with us in Edinburgh in March next year!  

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The Arctic Connections Fund was set up in 2021 to help Scottish organisations and communities work with partners in the Arctic. It is designed to promote the exchange of expertise on shared issues and raise awareness of common ambitions.

Scotland’s External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson said: 

“Scotland is one of the Arctic’s closest neighbours; we share many outlooks and characteristics. That’s why we continue to promote Scotland as the international partner of choice for our Arctic neighbours, opening new opportunities for bilateral and multilateral collaboration for mutual benefit. 

“The Arctic Connections Fund supports knowledge exchange and cooperation between Scotland-based organisations and their Arctic counterparts while also encouraging future opportunities for collaboration.”

Find out more about Scottish Government’s Arctic Connections Fund projects here:

https://twitter.com/ScotGovInter/status/1701179516914155538

https://www.gov.scot/publications/arctic-connections-fund-successful-projects-2023-to-2024/

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Pop-up Games Workshops at Citadel

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The folk down at Citadel Youth Centre are putting together a game that crosses over the themes of Mental Health and the Cost of Living. These themes were chosen by the young people, as issues that they want to discuss with their communities – exploring their thoughts, feelings, and opinions on the matters through the medium of Game Design. 
 
Liam and Luci from the The Tinderbox Games Club team dropped in to two of their sessions on Monday evenings over Sept/Oct, to hear their ideas and help them manifest those through game design! By providing introductory workshops for different platforms such as Twine, Bitsy, & Construct 3, the Citadel gang have been left with the tools to take on their ideas in new ways, and explore them further. 
 
Citadel Youth Centre are planning to bring their game to future exhibitions, including Tinderbox showcases that celebrate games completed or in development by game designers and young people across our projects and beyond! 
 
The Citadel Youth Centre are a fantastic bunch! A really mature, creative, enthusiastic and thoughtful group of young people and we are all really excited to see how their game ideas develop.
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Pop-up Games Workshop at YMCA

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On Tuesday 19th October, Mel and Andra from Produced Moon went along to YMCA to deliver a game workshop. The workshop was part of the Tinderbox Lab youth programme of games & creative tech workshops, currently running as a Scotland wide game jam which anyone can submit their game to. 

We met and created with nine young game designers, exploring VR, music making and digital game creation. We played a fishing game, painted scenes in 360, threw around our oddballs to create some music, and made some pixel art games in bitsy.   

Games ranged from an impossible escape room to a game lost in a smiley face. We loved being there, making and playing together, and big thanks to YMCA for hosting us! 

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About Us

Tinderbox Collective is a community of young people, musicians, artists and youth workers, based in Scotland.  We are a registered Scottish charity, under the name Tinderbox Project, no. SC042825.


Contact us

Email
admin@tinderboxcollective.org

Address
Tinderbox Project
North Edinburgh Arts Centre
15a Pennywell Road
Edinburgh EH4 4TZ

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