4 Reasons to ‘Gamify’ Your Emergency Management Training and Exercises

Even as professional adults, playing games helps us learn

If you were one of those kids who loved playing games as a kid, you are not alone.

It’s easy to have nostalgia for your first Atari or Nintendo. Playing games, whether board games or video games, has always played a role in our early development and learning.

They are also very effective in deep engagement.

Games come in all forms—whether it’s a simple strategy game that takes hours to complete, or a competitive game where you’re trying to set the fastest time, get the highest score, or outlast your opponents.

You may be questioning yourself right now if you are really reading something from an emergency management newsletter. The answer is yes; you are!

1.    A New Approach to Training and Exercises

So why all the talk about games in emergency management? Remember the building block approach to training and exercises, the one that reminds you of Tetris.

Games are a type of discussion-based training. Even as professional adults, we can still leverage games. Let’s be honest—traditional emergency preparedness training often feels like a Pac-Man game—endlessly chasing PowerPoints, dodging monotone lectures, and trying not to get eaten alive by boredom.

That’s where emergency exercise games come in. By turning response training into an interactive experience, you essentially help your staff or teams "level up" their skills in a way that's not only effective but also engaging.

2.    Engaging, memorable, realistic

I like to say that creating training or exercise on emergency preparedness is like being a movie writer and director. With any good movie, you need three things to happen, and it spells the acronym EMR. No, it’s not an electronic medical record, either. The training or exercise (movie) needs to be engaging, memorable, and realistic. So why these three?

People pay more attention when they are engaged, like kids, when it comes to Fortnite. With a more compelling narrative, even adults will listen in and retain more detail.

Next, we need it to be memorable. We want staff to remember this day at work. Bullet points on a PowerPoint presentation aren’t memorable, even if someone snaps a photo of it.

Lastly, when something is made real, it hits home. Even in fantasy games like Resident Evil, it’s the realism of the struggle and emotion that makes them impactful. Tying in a true story, even if it is not your personal story, will make any training or exercise resonate better.

3.    How to do it

So, how do you go about creating gamified training or exercises? It probably isn’t as hard as creating a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game like Call of Duty. Instead, think of each drill as a “mission,” each objective as a “quest,” and each role player as a “character class” with unique skills. Suddenly, a tabletop exercise becomes a dynamic, multi-player simulation where collaboration, critical thinking, and quick decision-making are the keys to victory.

4.    More than a box to check

Whether it’s a hospital surge drill, a cybersecurity incident response, or a mass casualty scenario, adding game elements like timed objectives, competitive scoring, or even “boss battles” against evolving challenges helps increase engagement and retention. It’s no longer just about checking the box—it’s about unlocking new achievements in preparedness.

Now you don’t have to go as elaborate as even that thought to create an effective gamified training or exercise. Something as simple as a trivia-type game, such as Jeopardy, can be very effective. A game of “Whisper Down the Alley” is also fun and effective.

I have seen this done with Stop the Bleed training. Some other ideas include escape rooms, which put staff in small groups, and they have to answer multiple puzzles to “escape.” The quickest team to escape receives bragging rights.

Read more about Emergency Management Gamified Training and HAPevolve’s offerings around escape rooms.

Emergency preparedness is serious business—but that doesn’t mean the training has to be boring. Exercise games bring strategy, storytelling, and stakes together in a way that encourages deeper learning and team cohesion. It’s time to reframe your next training: don’t just run a drill—play a game. Because in the game of emergency preparedness, it’s not about who wins. It’s about making sure everyone’s ready to play when it counts. Game over!

By: Charles (CJ) Sabo, MPH, CHEP, EMT-B, HAP manager, emergency management