Examining key design decisions involved in developing a serious game for child sexual abuse prevention

• Main Authors: Colleen Joy Stieler-Hunt, Christian Martyn Jones, Ben eRolfe, Kay ePozzebon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-02-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Video Games; sexual abuse; child protection; personal safety program; serious games; serious game design
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00073/full

This paper presents a case study of the key decisions made in the design of Orbit, a child sexual abuse prevention computer game targeted at school students between 8 and 10 years of age. Key decisions include providing supported delivery for the target age group, featuring adults in the program, not over-sanitising game content, having a focus on building healthy self-concept of players, making the game engaging and relatable for all players and evaluating the program. This case study has implications for the design of Serious Games more generally, including that research should underpin game design decisions, game designers should consider ways of bridging the game to real life, the learning that arises from the game should go beyond rote-learning, designers should consider how the player can make the game-world their own and comprehensive evaluations of Serious Games should be undertaken.