Cybersecurity mini-games

I co-supervised a team of three undergraduate students in Computer Science and Interactive Multimedia to design several cybersecurity games to educate 10-12 year old children about topics such as data privacy, misinformation, and privacy of IOT devices. For each game, we brainstormed ideas for the game, storyboarded potential ideas, and created the visual designs. We implemented two of the games using HTML5 and GDevelop - a game engine for designing 2D cross-platform games. 

My Role: As the project lead, I held brainstorming sessions, created game concepts and educational content, and regularly met with the team to provide advice on the design products. The visual designs were completed by two Interactive Multimedia and Design students, and the games were developed by a CS student. 
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Duration: June - August 2020 (3-months)

Private data on social media

This game teaches users about the challenges of managing their privacy on social media.  The main message is that privacy needs to be balanced with access to benefits provided by the platforms. 

Play sequence: players take on the role of a "packet inspector", inspecting packages of private information being transmitted by the user (e.g., sharing a photo), and must decide whether to "keep" or "remove" the package from the internet conveyor belt. Each of their decisions have consequence on the player's social capital and privacy indicators. 

Misinformation (Editor-in-truth)

The game Editor-in-Truth teaches children the process of fact-checking information online or shared with them. The player takes on the role of a news editor who receives tips from the public about potential stories. Their goal is to allocate limited resources (i.e., journalists) to investigate these tips. 
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Play sequence: Tipsters walk into the newsroom, and the player reads the tip, and chooses between several possible actions. 1). investigate the tip. 2). run a story without investigation -- the tip sounds pretty plausible. 3). ignore the tip. Each of these choices have consequences on the reputation of the editor and the newspaper.

Privacy of IOT devices

The exploratory game teaches children about the privacy issues associated with IOT devices in their smart-home. 

Play sequence: Players walk around in  their 2D home, and interact with their smart-devices as part of their daily routine. From these interactions, players learn how these devices work in terms of collecting, storing, and disseminating their personal data, and the protection mechanisms they provide.