| Sumario: | Background: Game‐making has the potential to foster cultural participation and empowerment, yet its role as a form of culture‐making remains underexplored. Existing approaches to cultural engagement often overlook the creative and participatory possibilities of game‐making for addressing pressing cultural challenges and promoting youth inclusivity and empowerment in cultural heritage. This study highlights the importance of game‐making as a meaningful strategy for cultural preservation and transformation. Objectives: The article investigates how game‐making, particularly through cultural game jams, can promote cultural participation, youth empowerment and support cultural innovation. Methods: The study is grounded in a design‐based research methodology and examines the design, development and implementation of three cultural game jams within the EPIC‐WE project. It employs a case study approach, analysing game jam practices through the lens of cultural participation, empowerment and diversity/inclusivity, while exploring connections to youth citizens' engagement in cultural heritage. Results and Conclusions: The findings show that cultural game jams can inspire and empower youth citizens to engage with cultural and societal issues through game‐making. This paper contributes to the ongoing dialogue on leveraging games and game‐making to transform culture and society by discussing the significant role of game‐making in promoting cultural awareness, value‐based imagination and youth engagement with cultural and societal issues. Lay Summary: What is currently known about this topic? ○Game jams are widely recognised as a creative practice for rapid game‐making, fostering experimentation and collaboration.○Youth participation in cultural and societal issues is an ongoing area of interest, with calls for more engaging, creative and empowering methods to involve young people in shaping cultural and social futures.○Cultural heritage sites often struggle to attract and meaningfully connect with contemporary youth, underscoring the need for innovative approaches to cultural engagement and belonging.What does this paper add? ○Introduces cultural game jams as a format for empowering youth citizens to participate in cultural and societal issues by co‐creating games rooted in values and heritage.○Demonstrates how game‐making, through value‐sensitive and culture‐based processes, can help youth experience new senses of empowerment and belonging and discover new perspectives on cultural and societal action.○Extends the concept of game jams beyond game development into cultural and social change, highlighting their potential to bridge cultural heritage, game design and European values○Showcases design‐based research as an effective, large‐scale, multi‐sited methodology for developing new collaborative practices among diverse partners and stakeholders.Implications for practice or policy ○Cultural institutions and heritage collections or sites can benefit from cultural game jams to engage youth and foster more inclusive, participatory forms of cultural preservation and innovation.○Policymakers and educators can adopt game‐making as a strategy to enable youths' empowered participation, critical‐creative thinking and active citizenship through cultural heritage.○Cross‐sector collaborations (e.g., cultural heritage institutions, higher education institutions, creative industries) can use cultural game jams as a structured yet flexible format for collaborating on and addressing cultural and societal challenges through playful, creative processes.
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