CAPTRS 2025 Impact Report

2025 was a year of growth and momentum for CAPTRS. We expanded our portfolio of serious games, deepened our partnerships, and delivered immersive learning experiences to decision-makers with influence in emergency management, public health, academia, and global development.

Hundreds played CAPTRS games this year, with participants representing local, state, and federal agencies; national and international organizations; and foundations, universities, and research institutions. These included emergency managers, public health officials, scientists, students, and other professionals responsible for making high-stakes decisions under uncertainty. We are proud to share these highlights of 2025.

Our game design and development team had an especially active year; they created new analog and digital games, launched digital companion applications for EMCE: City Blackout, A3P, and C3C games; and developed innovative prototyping and playtesting capabilities to accelerate our game development and iteration.

EMCE: City Blackout was our most purchased game of the year. It challenges players to take on the role of crisis managers, working under intense time pressure to restore power, manage resources, and reduce a massive winter storm’s cascading impacts.

“The game effectively demonstrated the challenge of allocating resources between immediate incident response and long-term mitigation. Playing it highlighted the value of planning and preparation to reduce cascading effects during a crisis.”
— Rice University EMCE: City Blackout player

A3P: Assess, Align, and Activate for Preparedness

In 2025, we consolidated and revised two existing games into a single framework-based exercise: A3P (Assess, Align, and Activate for Preparedness). Multiple local and state public health entities played the Novel Flu version of A3P this year. The game supports teams in:

(1) Building threat assessment capabilities

(2) Practicing alignment and consensus-building

(3) Interpreting evolving information to guide activation decisions

In 2026, we will launch new versions of A3P, including a new suite of public safety scenarios to complement the existing suite of public health scenarios.

C3C: Command, Control, Communication, and Coordination

We redesigned and piloted the C3C game, which focuses on strengthening cross-agency collaboration and clarifying roles and functions during emergencies. In the game, players manage escalating threats while:

(1) Testing interagency coordination

(2) Clarifying command structures

(3) Practicing activation protocols

(4) Strengthening communication within organizations, across agencies, and with external stakeholders

We are grateful to Lyda Hill Philanthropies and EpiEngage for their support of two pilot deployments of this game. Dallas County Health and Human Services and 16 regional partners played a Measles version of the game, and the South Dakota Department of Health, along with 10 partner organizations, played a Virulent Flu version of the game.

These participants reported a 10–30% increase in their ability to understand, identify, and explain key emergency management concepts, including: threat assessment triggers, incident command structures and how they evolve, Emergency Operations Center activation factors, decisions on which entities to engage as threats develop, and communication across agencies.

“CAPTRS did an outstanding job developing realistic, engaging scenarios that reflected the challenges we face in real-world public health responses. Participants were fully engaged and consistently reported meaningful learning, stronger cross-agency collaboration, and a deeper understanding of decision-making in dynamic situations.” — Dallas County Health and Human Services game player

CAPTRS piloted a new EMCE: Hurricane game at the International Association of Emergency Management (IAEM) annual conference in November. The game places players in a dynamic hurricane scenario where they must make time-critical decisions related to:

(1) Sheltering and evacuation

(2) Preparedness and resource allocation

(3) Coordination with neighboring jurisdictions

As forecasts and impact models evolve, players experience how early strategic decisions shape downstream outcomes and multi-jurisdiction coordination as the storm makes landfall.

“The game experience was extremely enriching, providing a practical and engaging understanding of emergency management in hurricane situations, while encouraging teamwork and quick decision-making under pressure.” — Municipality of Leiria, Portugal, game player

We also developed two new custom games in collaboration with partners in global development and global public health, focused on strategic planning and prioritization and surge management under constrained conditions.

In 2025, we also launched the CAPTRS Institute, expanding our work at the intersection of academia, serious gaming, and decision science. The Institute integrates game science, cognitive engineering, psychology, artificial intelligence, and advanced modeling. Its mission is to better understand human decision-making under uncertainty and to develop digital systems that enable broader access to high-quality simulation gaming exercises.

This year, the Institute launched a Challenge Competition, inviting teams and individuals to submit innovative AI-powered solutions that simplify and accelerate the creation of preparedness exercises.

A paper authored by Dr. de Rosa and other CAPTRS team members was also published in Nature Scientific Reports - The AMR Knowledge Space Game: participatory modeling to address the complexity of antimicrobial resistance.

As we begin 2026, we are deeply grateful to our clients, partners, funders, and team who made this year of innovation and growth possible.

In the year ahead, CAPTRS will focus on expanding our games’ reach to support more teams and individual decision-makers with immersive learning tools. Our team is also committed to advancing digital platforms through the CAPTRS Institute and building new partnerships to scale impact.

We invite you to reach out to learn more about our work, or to explore how CAPTRS games can support your organization!