UK Game

Our UK game focuses on the intimate relationship between Danielle (16) and James (17); players have the opportunity to play as both male and female main characters as the story unfolds.

The story centres around James’ attitude and behaviour towards Danielle, which becomes more controlling and abusive. Danielle experiences a range of emotions including confusion and distress as she tries to understand why the relationship has changed.

The game aims to facilitate young people’s learning about what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like, empowering them to spot and call out the early signs of intimate partner violence, to prevent it in their relationships. It is aimed at young people aged 14+ (at educators’ discretion).

The game

Click the button to the left to go to our itch.io page to download the Ni3 UK game ‘Danielle’, for free. We’ve trialled this PC-based game with young people in seven UK schools, and it’s been shown to have positive impacts – further details to follow. If you are a teacher or work with young people in another capacity, and use the game as an educational resource, we’d love to get your feedback via this short form.

Don’t forget to download the game manual (technical guidance on installing and playing the game) and the faciliator’s guide (ideas for lessons and using the game as a learning resource). These are available via the same link, or further down this page.

About the game

Danielle is a first year student at her local college together with her childhood friends, Hannah and Emily. It’s a great time for Danielle; she’s finally been given freedom, responsibilities and the chance to meet new people, in fact she’s been lucky enough to meet a guy, James, and they’ve started dating. It’s new and exciting, exactly the way that love is supposed to be – the perfect romance!

At least, it was.

It started out innocently enough when James wanted to know who she was hanging out with and where she was going, but lately he’s been acting differently. He quickly becomes jealous when Danielle spends time with her friends instead of him and she’s beginning to worry about what might happen if she upsets him. Would things escalate further? How will he react? These are the hard questions that are starting to loom in Danielle’s mind, and her friends aren’t making it easier; Hannah keeps telling her to get rid of James but Emily says he’s just being protective.

This is the story of Danielle and James and how their relationship changes; play as Danielle as she struggles with self-esteem, peer pressure and strained friendships and help her make the choices that she may be too afraid to make for herself.

None in Three - Developing games to prevent gender-based violence

Development

The game was developed by a small team of artists, developers and a game designer based at the University of Huddersfield within the None in Three Centre. Both qualitative and quantitative research, undertaken as part of the Ni3 UK project, was used to inform the game design.

Development uses the latest Unreal Engine to ensure quality of gameplay, designed to encourage a strong emotional response to the characters and story and improve the empathetic response.

Implementation

The game was trialled in schools between September 2021 and January 2022. Each school had a group of students aged 13-16 playing the game across five days. Each day they covered a chapter in the story and each chapter was played for approximately 20-30 minutes. Training was provided to teachers on how to use the game, and a gameplay tutorial is built in for players as part of the story. The game was distributed on USBs for the trial, allowing it to be played offline as well as facilitating the collection of anonymous data, to understand its effectiveness.

Interviews with teachers have been conducted to help us understand barriers and enablers to future use of the game within UK schools.

Facilitator's resource and technical manual

We have developed a research-informed resource to support facilitation of learning, which has been designed based on robust research, including studies carried out with UK children and young people, and with survivors and perpetrators of intimate partner violence, by the Ni3 UK research centre. It has also been developed in consultation with educators and educational leaders.

Click on the image to download the facilitator’s resource as a pdf, including suggested activities on topics covered in the Danielle computer game.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this resource, which has not yet been evaluated. If you use it for teaching and learning purposes, we’d really appreciate it if you could come back to our site and complete this short questionnaire after you’ve made use of the resource. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated and help us to further refine future resources.

See also the Technical Manual which will help you to install and play the game on PC/laptops, once you’ve downloaded it from our itch.io page.

Characters

Danielle, age 16

I’ve just started college as a first year student – studying art, actually – together with my friends Hannah and Emily who I’ve known since we were kids. They’re good people, and if I’m being completely honest it was reassuring to actually know someone when I started college. I mean, it is kind of daunting starting somewhere new right?

I have made some new friends though, and I actually met a pretty great guy from the rugby team, James. We just got chatting one day after a match and as they say, the rest is history. I feel so lucky that James was interested in me – he could have been with anyone here!

We’ve only been dating a few weeks but it feels so natural. Sure he gets jealous but what guy doesn’t? Hannah is always telling me that he’s a bit controlling; I know she means well but it’s not like that at all.

At least, I don’t think it is.

James

James, age 17

I’m in my second year of college now, and things are going pretty well. I’m doing a sport development course and I’m on the rugby team so I actually spend most of my time training. It’s not all bad though, I met Kiran through rugby and we hang out a lot now – I even introduced him to Logan who I’ve known since I was a kid. The three of us are pretty close, though Kiran and Logan don’t always see eye to eye.

At one of our rugby matches a few weeks ago I met a cute first year student, Danielle, who seemed pretty cool; I actually asked her out not too long after that. I’m looking forward to telling my brother, he’s always bragging about what he’s doing at university!

The only problem is that Danielle doesn’t listen to me – I tell her to have lunch with me, and she goes off with her friends. She’s still hanging out with her guy friends too. How can she not understand that it’s embarrassing for me? How am I going to look to everyone else if my girl ignores me?

I’m sure she’ll get the message soon enough though.

Hannah

Hannah, age 16

I’m glad high school is over and that we can finally concentrate on things that matter. I’ve felt like an adult for so long already, having to look after my little brother and all, which is why I’m interested in studying childcare here at college. It’s hard balancing everything in my life – college, babysitting and a part time job – but Danielle and Emily help me stay on track. That’s the benefit of coming to college with friends, you can rely on each other.

I think that’s why I’m a bit hard on Danielle, I feel like I’m definitely looking out for her when it comes to James. I’m just not sure what Danielle sees in him; he can be so rude to her and always seems to be telling her what to do. He needs to treat her better and stop being so controlling, or she needs to actually see him for who he is.

Emily

Emily, age 17

People don’t always take me seriously because they think I’m just a pretty face, but I’m so much more than that. I’m a trendsetter; I know what looks good and how it should be presented which is exactly why I’m studying marketing here at college. I love Hannah and Danielle, but they just don’t get it sometimes – you’ve got to look good to get places and bless them, but sometimes they just don’t.

Danielle is so lucky; she got James even despite her style! Every girl in college is jealous of her – I know I am – but I think she could try a bit harder for him. If she doesn’t, he’ll lose interest in her pretty quickly.

Still, if he does dump her that means I can have a go!

Kiran

Kiran, age 17

Although I only met James and Logan in our first year of college, we’re a pretty tight group and have each other’s backs, even more so when James and I are on the rugby field. I enjoy hanging out one on one with James when we play squash too, Logan just doesn’t have the patience for it unfortunately.

I wish James would calm down a bit, he’s starting to behave irrationally with Danielle. She’s a decent person and could be a really good influence on James if he just let her. He tells her what to do so often and she actually goes along with it! One day she’ll up and leave him and he probably won’t even understand why. To be honest, I’m not sure how he would react if that happened either.

Logan

Logan, age 17

College has definitely been a lot harder for me than I expected, but I’ve managed to make up for it with the people I’ve met. I’ve known James since we were kids, and when he joined the rugby team he introduced me to Kiran. James had asked me if I wanted to try rugby myself, but I’m only interested in in going to watch the games to hit on girls. All in all, they’re pretty solid guys and it’s good to have people around you that you trust.

I was kind of surprised that James wanted to date Danielle, she seems like a very innocent sort of person – which is all right I guess – but if I know anything it’s that there are plenty of better girls out there. Besides, it’s too soon to be tied down!

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 IPV 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.

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 the UK, by seeking to redress gender inequality in our society.

Game Development Resources

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