Our values

These are the values and the mindset we publish about ourselves: what we try to build into every project, and how we try to work while we build it. They sit alongside the principles on our About page, that psychological safety is designed in rather than bolted on, that every scenario is co-designed with the people who will use it, and that human judgement stays human.

We separate the two on purpose. The four values below describe the standard we are aiming at in any given piece of work; the four mindset traits describe the way we try to work while we get there. Neither list is meant to be exhaustive marketing language, it is the wording we already use about ourselves, kept as published rather than rewritten for this page.

Values set the standard we hold ourselves to; mindset is how we show up day to day to meet it. Together they shape the co-design process behind every project, from the first discovery conversation through to ongoing support. Community and collaboration show up as the co-design workshops in that process; trust and transparency show up as the informed-consent and debriefing steps we build into sensitive scenarios; and curiosity and an action-oriented mindset are why we would rather prototype something with you early than hand over a finished product unseen.

Each value also has a checkable proof point. Community: PTR co-founder Simon Lowe has mentored around 30 game-design interns through SAE Institute's program, more than 10 of whom have moved into paid roles. Creativity: Carked It!, the card game that came from the founders' Ageing Revolution work, won a 2024 Australian Good Design Award for making conversations about death easier to have. Excellence: PTR's work is examined in independent, peer-reviewed research, collected on Research and evidence. Trust: a co-design practice that treats lived experience as equal to professional expertise, set out on Our approach.

For how that plays out stage by stage, see Our approach.