IMRE Games and Media Win Golds

Products created by our department and its Learning Games Lab have recently been recognized by the International Serious Play Awards and the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE).

Cozy River Valley: Higher education award winner in the 2026 International Serious Play Awards.

Cozy River Valley, an educational video game for undergraduates, explores the challenges of managing water in arid agriculture. In June 2026, the game won Gold in the Higher Education category at the International Serious Play Awards. The award was announced at the Serious Play Conference in Europe, in Mainz, Germany. In the same week, the game won Gold and Outstanding Professional Skills awards from the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE), during its annual conference in Billings, Montana. ACE recognized Cozy River Valley for its Innovative Use of Instructional Technology in Education and Interactive Multimedia/Web Graphics. Cozy River Valley also won the Outstanding Professional Skills award (best of category) in Technology and Design.

Cozy River Valley gameboard, showing crop and irrigation choices.

Also at the ACE conference, IMRE's virtual reality app, White Sands: Beyond the Dunes VR, won a Gold award for Motion Graphics/Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality/Animation.

A gypsum dune sunset from White Sands: Beyond the Dunes VR.

Ag Innovators, a series of modules that help students see themselves in agricultural careers, won a Silver for Electronic Media, Video & Audio for Diverse Audiences. Created as part of the same project, a video profiling modern Ag Innovator Jacob Torres won an additional Silver, in the Electronic Media, Video and Audio: Profile Video category.

Planting chile pepper seeds in a controlled environment, "Jacob Torres: Growing Chile Plants in Space," from the Ag Innovators video series.

In the Social Media category, the team’s social media marketing campaign for New Mexico green chile won a Bronze. These materials share educational information about our state's iconic crop and were distributed through the Discover New Mexico Chile campaign.

An Instagram post created as part of the campaign for New Mexico chile.

In addition, Market Set Go!, a food safety game for farmers’ market vendors, is a finalist for the Gee! Awards. Winners will be announced later this month.

A full market from Market, Set, Go!

For over 20 years, Innovative Media Research & Extension has served the Cooperative Extension Service by producing educational media, including animations, videos, games, apps, interactive modules, social media, and websites.  The team partners with research groups, faculty, and programs nationally and internationally to create educational media in various disciplines.

We invite you to explore these award-winning projects and more by visiting the Innovative Media Research & Extension website at https://innovativemedia.nmsu.edu/.