A Day in the Life: A Digital Game to Support

Youth Decision Making Ragnar Anderson, MPH

Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry & Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health

(Ci3)

April 6-8, 2014 San Francisco, CA

Annual Conference on Youth + Tech + Health

• Meeting young people in a place they already inhabit

and enjoy

• Unexpected space to explore relatable, real-world scenarios and problems

• Unique opportunity for failure without real-world

consequences

Learning from Games

Game Development

Games developed for youth, with youth

• To create an interpersonal landscape in which players make a series of dialogue decisions in a variety of interactions, prizing empathetic responses.

• To prompt players to reflect on their behavior and its effects.

• To increase critical thinking and interrogation of their social assumptions.

• To spark and cultivate empathy within players.

Objectives

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A Day in the Life

• SETTING: High school

• FOCUS: Decision making and its effects

• PRIMARY MECHANIC: series of dialogue selections which comprise interactions with characters

• CONSTRAINING FACTOR: limited time to spend within the surrounding space before the game begins anew Groundhog Day experience

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A Day in the Life

• Dialogues unveil a range of scenarios that involve topics such as:

• Bullying and rumors

• Personal relationships

• Sexual health

• Youth Violence

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A Day in the Life

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A Day in the Life

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A Day in the Life

HYPERLINK to GAME

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Research Questions

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• Can digital games change decision-making?

• Does rehearsing decision making and exploring outcomes influence attitudes pertaining to the game topics?

• Does this particular game environment change players perception of their ability to change a culture, community, interaction

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Project Team

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Lead designer and developer: Amanda Dittami

Researchers: Melissa Gilliam, Ragnar Anderson, Erin Jaworski, and Patrick Jagoda

Design Director: Patrick Jagoda

Designers: Lena Dickinson, Philip Ehrenberg, Megan Macklin, and Keith Wilson

Developers: Mason Arrington, Gewargis Envia, Hanchen Jiang, and Petras Kuprys

Graphics: Amanda Dittami and Ashlyn Sparrow

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Next Steps

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• Create sound effects and musical score • Programming and scripting • Finalizing art assets • Finalizing content

• Interrogating the ways in which we depict the various topics • Play-testing with young people

• Are we achieving our objectives? • Is the message of the game successfully conveyed through

the game mechanics (procedural rhetoric)

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Game Changer Chicago is grateful for the support of the Compton

Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society.

For more about us, see:

http://gamechanger.uchicago.edu

For project updates, see: http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/gamechanger/portfolios/a-day-in-the-life/

Thank you for your attention!