Data Defense
In collaboration with Media Smarts, my two team members and myself were tasked with creating a game to be used in Canadian based schooling. We worked with MediaSmarts to choose an important topic for a target age group. We decided to focus on the importance of internet privacy and teaching kids about cookies and the importance of removing history on their browsers.
My Role
For this game, I was the project leader tasked with the job of coordinating the design sprint. I also focused on the content for the game, specifically looking at the instructions, game ideology, asset design and character sprites.
Game Concept
Data Defense is an arcade style maze game that teaches students how to protect their information online. Focused in procedural rhetoric, users learn the mechanics of the game, while simultaneously learning the lesson of data defense.
Evil marketers try to collect information that you leave behind in the maze. The more they collect, the more advertisements pop up on your screen. The only way to protect yourself is by pressing the yellow reset button, similar to that of clearing your browser history on your computer. The goal is to make it as long as you can before you entire screen is filled with advertisements.
Design Sprint
For our design sprint, we used the GV method. This was a very demanding process as the expectation was to have a fully fleshed out prototype by the end of the week ready for user testing. Although our prototype was not the end result of our game, it was a great stepping stone that led us in the right direction when looking towards game mechanics. As the leader of the sprint, I worked to ensure we had all resources needed for each day and kept members on task during our meetings. I have found design sprints to be a great way to truly look at and understand a problem before skipping ahead to the solution. In future projects, I plan to incorporate design sprints wherever possible to emphasize a focus in problem solving.
User Testing
Midway through the design process, we joined a user testing event where people could show off a prototype of their game and get feedback from participants. This was a great event that taught us a lot about how to improve our game. Although our mechanics were not the focus, it was interesting to learn what people knew about our topic, which moulded our use of procedural rhetoric.
Character Sprites
My main focus for the protagonist and antagonist of the game was to create a strong juxtaposition. As this is being used for students, I wanted them to fully understand the role of each character and bring more understanding to the issue. They compliment and balance each other in multiple different ways like shape and colour.
