What if language revitalization could be joyful, collaborative, and just a little pixelated? In this lightning talk, we share the story of an intercultural game-making workshop held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver with rangatahi (youth) from Te Kura Matua o Wainuiomata, Aotearoa. In just two hours, these young language guardians imagined, designed, and coded their own Māori-language typing games—drawing on whakapapa, traditional patterns, and celestial knowledge to breathe play into preservation.

This workshop is part of a larger initiative to create open-source, customizable typing games for endangered and Indigenous languages. These games serve not only as learning tools but also as interactive cultural vessels—spaces where children can encounter their mother tongues as living, playable, and beautifully theirs. Sparked by a young boy’s wish—"I love typing games, but why isn’t there one in my language?"—we began by prototyping a game in Uyghur. From there, we developed a model that could be adapted by and for communities themselves.

In this session, participants can expect a fast-paced reflection on the power of games as digital preservation tools, an inside peek at the co-design process with Māori students, and a live demonstration of some of the games created. We’ll discuss how tools like Canva and simple code editors were used to scaffold creativity, and how small gestures—like typing the word for “star” beneath a digital night sky—can become acts of cultural resurgence.

This presentation will be led by one facilitator and includes playable prototypes. We hope to inspire fellow creators, educators, and technologists to imagine new, fun, and fiercely local ways of bringing Indigenous languages back to the fingertips of the next generation.