About Loki’s Loop
At Loki’s Loop we design escape rooms and other games as an engaging way to experience and learn about misinformation
Loki’s Loop is a project of the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public. Our first game – The Euphorigen Investigation – is an escape room. Escape rooms are live-action adventure games where teams of players work cooperatively to solve a series of puzzles. The immersive nature of the medium serves as an engaging way to interact with various deceptive tactics such as manipulated charts, bot accounts, and deepfakes. It’s an experiential rather than skills-based approach for people to think more critically about the information they encounter online.
Euphorigen is available in two versions – online and popup. The online version is played over video conferencing software (e.g. Teams, Zoom) and web browser. The popup version is a kit that can be downloaded and printed for in-person play. In both versions a gamehost (e.g. librarian, teacher) facilitates the experience.
Loki’s Loop games are products of extensive research and co-design activities at the UW Center for an Informed Public, a nexus for multidisciplinary research on misinformation and translating research into policy, technology design, curriculum development, and public engagement. Other partners are the Technology & Social Change Group, the GAMER Research Group, and Puzzle Break (the first escape room company in the U.S.).
People
Core Team

Chris Coward
Senior Principal Research Scientist
University of Washington Information School

Jin Ha Lee
Associate Professor
University of Washington Information School

Lindsay Morse
Co-founder
Puzzle Break
PhD Students

Johnny Cho
Ph.D. Student
University of Washington Information School

Lidia Morris
Ph.D. Student
University of Washington Information School

Travis Windleharth
Senior Researcher
foundry10 (graduated 2021)
Collaborators
Eric Gordon, Professor and Director, Engagement Lab, Emerson College
Rachel Moran, Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington
Maddy Jalbert, Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington
Julie Kientz, Professor and Chair, Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington
Stacey Wedlake, Research Scientist, Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School
Technology
El Forst, Web Application Developer, University of Washington Information School
Jason Portenoy, Data Engineer, Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington
Paul Lockaby, Senior Data Engineer, Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington
Students
Daphne Hsu, Audrey Kho, Ploy Pruekcharoen, Yichi Zhang, Ria Antony, Amaya Kejriwal, Lei Lei, Gladys Hitt, Yinan Guo, Amruta Jadhav, Shinji Yamashita, Carly Minow, Craig Kelliher, Simon Talusan, Jerry Wang, Gina Rome, Caitlin Smith, Nataliya Muzyka, Francis Wang, Amruta Jadhav, Yuanfeng Li, Dev Mathur, Taylor Agajanian, Lindsey Schwartz, Alexander Escalera Sanchez, Iva Matkovic, Helen Li, Sathvika Shakhamuri, Jacob Lackner, Ari Hock, Juan Carlos Gomez, Jamie Ramos, Yimeng Wang, Maina Gachugu, Darren Ma, Andy Cahill, John Rosen, Jeffrey Wang, Justin Bao, Molly Wu, Angelina Lum, Katherine Wardhana
Advisors
June Ahn, Associate Professor, University of California, Irvine, School of Education
Candace Epps-Robertson, Assistant Professor, English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Barbara Fister, Professor Emerita, Gustavus Adolphus College
Risa Puno, Artist
Juan Rubio, Digital Media and Learning Program Manager, Seattle Public Library
Claire Wardle, Co-founder, First Draft News
Loki’s Loop is a project of:
Project Partners
