Abstract for: Glaring Reality Simulation Game - For Collaboration, Systems Thinking Literacy & Systemic Sense-making

As the world faces interconnected crises, it is becoming increasingly important to inculcate systems thinking skills - for navigating uncertainty, managing instability and crafting futures together among humans. There is a need for even more low threshold tools that allow immersive experience into systems thinking and systemic sense-making before formal modelling. The Glaring Reality Simulation Game fills this need as a domain agnostic standalone tool or as a complement to existing tools / process / processes to engage stakeholders. Glaring Reality is an innovative physical simulation game for collaboration, systems thinking literacy, and systemic sense-making across diverse stakeholder groups. Domain-agnostic, highly customizable, and co-creative, it enables deep scenario exploration across rising complexity levels. Its non-academic, workshop-based format lowers barriers for broad participation. Through introduction, gameplay, and reflection, participants find it both insightful and genuinely fun. Glaring Reality has been delivered across business schools, city councils, NGOs, and universities to diverse age groups and domains. Participants engage deeply in play and reflection, generating insights, ownership, and “aha” moments around systemic sense-making. They connect the experience to their own contexts, question mental models, explore feedback loops, and consistently describe the workshops as immersive, reflective, and fun. Glaring Reality has been very well received and meets a growing need to make systems thinking more accessible in uncertain times. Its customizable, non-academic format supports future-focused scenarios across domains, encourages ownership of learning, and keeps participants deeply engaged as challenges evolve from simple to wicked. It offers strong potential alongside other system dynamics services in both nonprofit and for-profit settings.