Educational games have a reputation for being lackluster. Striking a balance between good game mechanics and teaching specific content is something that few have been able to accomplish. In this paper, we will discuss some of the challenges that we faced during the creation of Pathfinder, a game funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, that aims to decrease implicit biases against underrepresented individuals in academic science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). We will describe three iterations of the game to illustrate how we are working toward balancing content and gameplay with a specific focus on how to make a game about a sensitive social issue fun to play. This is our story of making a little game with big impact, called Pathfinder.
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