India Game

Our third person, narrative exploration game for Indian young people focuses on a young girl, Anju, and explores the different kinds of gender bias that she encounters both at home and at school.

The game has been designed to change attitudes that contribute to violence against women and girls in India. Our aim is to empower young people, to increase empathy and to raise awareness of the causes and effects of gender inequality and gender-based violence.

Due to COVID-19, game trials in schools were not possible. We are seeking further funding to evaluate the game before making it and the curriculum/facilitator’s guide publicly available – watch this space.

Our Approach

Why?

Computer games have the opportunity to offer unparalleled immersion, allowing the player to be an active participant within the story as opposed to just watching it unfold. When immersion and story come together within a game, the result is an experience no other medium can match.

Goal

Our goal is to create a game that immerses the player in the low and high moments of the character’s journey, and to increase empathy and raise awareness of gender bias using the interactivity and immersion that only games can offer. There needs to be a seamless blend between the gameplay on one side and learning principles on the other. The player’s total experience is integral to the learning process.

Benefits

Playing a computer game can influence thoughts, feelings and physiological stimulation. These can interact with each other, and through gameplay mechanisms such as achievements or choice-driven narrative, can also reinforce each other. Playing a prosocial computer game can increase interpersonal empathy and, consequently, contribute to improved social interactions.

The Game

Anju is a young girl who lives with her bother, Siddhant, her parents, Surekha and Anil, and her grandmother (‘Dadi’). Anju’s best friend at school is Aisha, who has some problems at home.

The game explores different forms of gender bias and how these attitudes affect the people involved. This includes the treatment that both Anju and Aisha experience at school and at home.

The game introduces young people to the variety of ways in which gender bias and fixed gender roles dictate the experiences and expectations of the characters. Through the game players are able to explore how these biases and fixed gender roles can be challenged.

Development

The game has been developed by a small team of artists, developers and a game designer. Our games team worked in close consultation with our India-based research team to ensure the game is culturally appropriate and is targeted specifically at young people in India. Both qualitative and quantitative research, undertaken as part of the Ni3 project, have been used to inform the game design.

Development used the latest Unreal Engine to ensure quality of gameplay. This gives a stronger emotional response to the characters and story and improve the empathetic response.

Implementation

Our original plan was for the game to be trialled in schools across five days, with students aged between 12 and 16. However, owing to the ongoing situation with the Covid-19 pandemic we are currently unable to undertake schools based trials of our game in India. We hope to take the game into schools as soon as it is safe to do so.

We have developed detailed lesson plans to support teachers in using the game as an educational tool. These lesson plans and the game itself will be freely available from our website once we secure further funding to conduct schools based trials of the game and the supporting scheme of work.

Sustainable Development Goals

Through our prosocial computer games, the None in Three Research Centre is working to address the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 in India, by seeking to redress gender inequality in our society.