Digital games are widely regarded as powerful learning tools with the potential to foster development of transversal skills. How best to exploit that potential in formal education is still a matter of scientific discussion and this constitutes a key research question pursued in this project. The aim is to propose and test an innovative methodology for leveraging the potential of digital games for developing transversal abilities such as digital competence, reasoning skills and creativity. To this end the project applies a collaborative “learning by doing" pedagogical approach to Game Based Learning. Gaming environments containing specific authoring features will be employed to allow all learners (including those with learning difficulties) not just to play games but also to create their own by collaborating in groups. Even if the adopted tools are rich, simple to use, flexible and motivating, their effectiveness and added educational value largely depends on how they are used: student activities need to be carefully designed and orchestrated, and embedded in carefully thought-out pedagogical scenarios. The scope of MAGICAL goes beyond activating existing professionalism or training a limited group of teachers to adopt the approach. It foresees designing and running a prototype course for student-teachers and professional educators. The main result from this will be the generation of a toolkit instantiating a specific methodology for turning “game creation” into an effective educational strategy to be employed in courses for student teachers and educators. Experiments conducted in the different partner countries will lead to the aggregation of a set of best practices produced in reusable form. Analysis of the experiments conducted will contribute to answer questions regarding the effectiveness of the actions undertaken on the development of the above mentioned key skills.