It is a serious task in child-centered research designs to establish trustful situations in which children can express their sense-making. Building on means of interaction and communication which are part of children’s everyday life and expertise often serves as a key factor in regard of research validity and data quality. Play or playful methodologies seemingly meet this condition. Yet, play has been rarely reflected as approach for researchers in activation, data collection, analysis and research dissemination. A reason might be the several ambiguities (Sutton-Smith, 1997) of the magic circle, in other words the immersive power of good games or intensive play with their multilayered, yet frictional relations to social practices and cultural codes. Then again, play has been framed as one of the most prominent competences of children, and as cross-generational self-chosen, voluntary activity, localized in time and space, constituted by rules and enabled by one's own imagination, experience and competences (Caillois 2017). In this, the author finds a lot of similarities to methodological and ethical qualitative research requirements, especially in the realm of participatory, visual or space-related approaches. The contribution reflects on several research projects by the author with children between four to twelve years of age in which play was part of the design. It identifies potentials of play as an inclusive research strategy on the one hand and points out challenges on the other. While social-reformist, e.g. in pedagogy, social work, urban studies, have employed game repeatedly as method to address and alter social hierarchies and practices, post-colonial perspectives have stressed the power relations embedded in play (Trammel, 2020). In order to engage in a differentiated debate, the paper will relate the considerations on play in empirical processes to current debates in cultural studies on play. Caillois, R.. Die Spiele und die Menschen: Maske und Rausch., Matthes & Seitz, 2017. Sutton-Smith, B. The Ambiguity of Play. Harvard University Press, 1997. Trammell, A.. Torture, Play and the Black Experience. In: G|A|M|E. The Italian Journal of Game Studies, Nr. 9. 2020