Playing with Data: A Systematic Review of Games for Visualization Literacy

People encounter data visualizations daily, yet visualization literacy, the ability to read, construct, and critically assess charts, remains rarely taught in formal education. Games offer engaging, feedback-rich environments for practicing these skills. This paper presents a two-phase systematic review that connects general educational game research with visualization literacy games. Phase 1 synthesizes 97 reviews of educational and serious games, mapping dominant design and evaluation practices across educational game research, while Phase 2 analyses 15 studies, examining how patterns from Phase 1 appear in visualization literacy games. Across both phases, we find a strong reliance on simulation genres, feedback-driven interaction, and short-term pre/post testing, along with underused behavioral logs, standardized engagement scales, and almost no delayed or transfer measures. Visualization literacy games also overemphasize interpretation tasks, neglecting construction and bias detection, and rarely use validated visualization assessments such as VLAT, CALVI, or AVEC. Based on these findings, we propose design-evaluation recommendations that link task focus, genre choice, and a lightweight evaluation bundle, which include validated self-report, interaction logs, and delayed transfer tests. These recommendations offer a structured starting point for designing and studying visualization literacy games.