Cyber Quest Live: A Gamified Cyber Challenge Across Campus

Posted on by Sophie James

Sophie James explaining to students how to play Cyber Quest

Designing an interactive, interdisciplinary cyber learning experience at festival scale

Cyber Quest featured as one of the flagship interactive experiences at this year’s Lancashire Cyber Festival 2026, hosted by Lancaster University. Over 130 visiting students from Lancaster Girls' Grammar School, Blackpool Sixth, Lancaster Royal Grammar School, Lancaster & Morecombe College, and Blackburn, Blackpool and Fylde, took part in a campus-wide, gamified cyber challenge focused on digital risk, security, and learning through active participation.

I led the design and co-development of Cyber Quest as a ten-station, location-based challenge delivered across campus, with each station built around a different cyber or security scenario and teams working within a 50-minute window to complete as many stations as possible. Ten student ambassadors acted as station agents on the day, bringing Cyber Quest to life and guiding student teams through each stage of the experience. Participants progressed by tackling practical tasks that required investigation, judgement, and collaborative problem solving, with peer competition driving pace and momentum across the challenge.

Cyber learning moved from abstract concept to lived experience through live challenges, team strategy, and real-world decision making. Several stations integrated digital behaviour and platform decision-making elements, creating an interdisciplinary layer that connected cyber risk concepts directly to students’ everyday online actions and choices including phishing threats, conspiracy content, social media manipulation, and romance fraud in the context of online dating. This grounded the challenges in students lived digital worlds and stimulated wider discussion across teams.

The format centred on scenario-based tasks where students tested choices, compared approaches, and solved problems together. Structured movement between campus locations was built in by design and added navigation and shared tactical thinking to the learning process, with teams navigating via their Cyber Quest challenge map.

Cyber Quest was developed and delivered with the support of an all-female cross-functional planning team: Kate Jenkinson, Rebecca Chan, and Gabbi Burley

Feedback from students and visiting teachers has been exceptionally positive, with the interactive and team-based structure consistently highlighted as a standout feature of the day.

High-energy, challenge-driven learning environments like this demonstrate the power of well-designed gamified education at scale, where active problem solving and collaboration strengthen both engagement and depth of understanding.

Dr Sophie James

Lecturer in Security & Protection Science, Department of Marketing

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