The SECRIOUS research team are looking for organisations who would like to run a 5-day in-person team building activity this summer.
Supported by cyber security researchers from Heriot Watt University and game designer experts from the Glasgow School of Arts, a group of participants (15 to 25) will work in teams of 5 to design a game that educates players about cybersecurity.
Games are usually built by teams with a mix of skills, while this Game Jam is aimed at people who have some basic coding abilities, the artistic and storytelling aspects of game design mean anyone can participate and make a valuable contribution to the process. In addition, there will be experts in game design and development, and cyber security to help mentor and support your team throughout the 5 days.
Participants will start by looking at triadic game design, which is useful for designing games that are educational as well as fun. Using this model, each team will create an outline for their own cyber-security game. Then, using Game Loops, a useful visual tool that can be used to describe game play, the participants will design the interactions for the game in further detail and create a prototype to showcase them in action. They will then expand upon the original work and add game aesthetics, art and dialogue to bring the game experience to life and create an engaging play experience. Bringing in tools such as the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics) framework participants will work as a team to think though how their design decisions affect the player experience and the relationship between the player activities and rules of the game.
This project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and therefore the Game Jam can be run at no cost to your organization. For more information about the research goals of the project, please visit: https://ittgroup.org/secriousproject.
For more information on getting involved please contact Laura Whyte: L.Whyte@hw.ac.uk