An Adaptation Framework for Turning Real Life Events into Games: The Design Process of the Refugee Game (original) (raw)

Refugeoly Building a Serious Game through refugee testimonies

Refugeoly is a Serious Game which it main purpose is not just playing for fun but playing to understand a humanitarian crisis. This board game is designed to experience based in real facts the dramatic journey of refugees trying to get into a country that can give them asylum. Playing Refugeoly turns the player into a refugee and becomes conscience of the real circumstances that a refugee has to go through in the journey to safety. Refugeoly has been built into a game with the testimonies of refugees and NGO volunteers in refugee camps of Greece, Turkey, Spain and France and with information from different organisations. This paper aims to explain the design process, the game mechanics, the different tested game formats, the feedback from the general public, academics and students that have played it and it future development.

Game Co-design with and for Refugees: An Intercultural Approach

2017

Mobile games have a potential to assist in the acculturation of immigrants and refugees. We propose how to design such games collaboratively based on co-design approach. We also review relevant game mechanics and technologies such as multiplaying, interactive storytelling, gamification, and virtual reality.

The People: A Serious Role-playing Game Designed to Address a Humanitarian Crisis

International Journal of Role-Playing

In this article, I present a case study of the serious role-play game The People, which was created as a response to the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border in cooperation with an engaged collective of researchers and groups of activists. The game combines elements of role-playing, a board game, and cards to present the complexity of the situation in the Emergency State Zone on the Polish-Belarusian border, especially on the practical, social, and institutional levels. The purpose of the tool is to raise the participants’ awareness of the current situation and to enhance an active search for solutions to the crisis. The game enables participants to adopt a perspective of a border zone resident or a refugee, and ultimately modify the rules governing the world to make it fairer. Providing the participants with agency to reconstruct the game environment during the debriefing made it possible to generate numerous possible solutions at the level of direct interventions; e.g....

LEARNING ABOUT REFUGEE LIFE WITH EDUCATIONAL VIDEO GAMES

Information Technologies and Learning Tools, 2023

In recent years, scholarly investigations have yielded the consensus that video games possess multifaceted attributes that extend beyond their conventional perception as mere sources of leisure, diversion, and entertainment. The immersive nature of video games has led to increased interest in their use as platforms for engaging in discourses across a diverse array of subject matters with the potential to reach a wider audience and generate meaningful impact. Combined with the sense of presence and ownership that allows players to be placed in the shoes of characters grappling with social or political issues, video games are converting into an effective and accessible tool for learning and engagement with pressing cultural, social and political issues. Current research aims to understand better the potential of educational video games to address these pressing problems, in this case, the refugee crisis, to evoke empathy and raise awareness by looking at the problem 'behind the scenes' with an audience that initially was not interested in the topic. This qualitative study (N=78) employed the narrative research method to examine experiential participatory learning with participants playing the educational video game Against All Odds developed by UNHCR. By immersing players in this virtual experience, this game was created to educate and encourage a greater understanding of the realities faced by refugees, the complexity, and dangers of the refugee experience, as well as the reasons behind their displacement. The promising results of the research show that a video game can address serious social issues by creating a simplified but still dynamic scale model of refugee reality. Participants reported an enjoyable gaming experience, newfound interest in the issue at hand, increased empathy toward refugees, and motivation to help people in need. The study illustrates that by putting players in the shoes of struggling characters, video games could make learning about these topics more engaging and, as a result, more accessible and appealing to a wider audience, including non-gamers and people previously disinterested in the topic. These results invite educators, researchers, and scholars from the fields of education, game studies, social sciences, and cultural studies to explore the potential of video games as a possible tool for engaging students, addressing social issues, raising awareness, and fostering empathy. The article also identifies several prospective domains for future research.

Designing Narrative Games for a Serious Context

2019

In this paper, we introduce a new approach to designing games for serious contexts. In contrast to Serious Games we argue that learning is a too narrow focus for serious contexts and that simulation of real world problems ought to be supplemented with other design strategies that place greater emphasis on fiction and narratives. The approach is exemplified through three game prototypes designed to be played by an inmate and his child in a prison during visiting hours. By analyzing these game prototypes we demonstrate how a game can be structured around a narrative plot in three different ways. Moreover, we discuss how narrative plots in a game may open up for developing player's emotional experiences over time and grow social relationships between inmate and child. On the basis of our case analysis we discuss, in more detail, how our approach differs from Serious Games and we single out some key implications for emotion-driven design.

How to Analyze the Potential of Digital Games for Human Rights Education

Revista LUsófona de Educação, 2018

Serious games that address topics related to human rights education have become increasingly available since the launch of Escape from Woomera in 2003, a game that raises awareness of the plight of refugees. A majority of serious games in the field of human rights focus on topics related to refugees and poverty in order to raise awareness and evoke empathy for the groups depicted. The paper introduces the Serious Games Design Assessment (SGDA) Framework as a tool to find out if a certain game might be used to achieve the objective the designer intended when designing the game. Using the game Bury Me, My Love, which shows the journey of a Syrian woman wanting to escape to Europe, the approach is explained in detail. The conclusion of the game-analysis shows that Bury Me, My Love can be regarded as a successful example of a serious game that introduces and engages the player in what it means to leave your home country as all game-design elements support the purpose.

The Role of Serious Gaming in Assisting Humanitarian Operations

International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management

Crisis response, including humanitarian operations, is a highly complex field and its effectiveness is challenged by the dynamic partnerships of organizations involved and critical field conditions. Serious gaming is recognized as an effective method for complex systems design and analysis. Given the criticality of complex humanitarian operations and the current challenges faced by humanitarians in crisis response, serious gaming could play an important role in this field. However, the full potential of serious gaming in humanitarian assistance has not been fully explored yet. This article examines the role of serious gaming in assisting humanitarian operations. A board game is developed and played to examine its role in facilitating requirement engineering and training for humanitarian missions. In the contribution, the authors show how they were able to address the vital challenges faced by humanitarian aid workers in crisis response. Additionally, the outcomes of game sessions an...

Digital game-based education for Syrian refugee children: Project Hope

Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 2018

Turkey is the top refugee-hosting country in the world, with more than three million registered Syrian refugees. An international research team was the first to document the educational and mental health needs of Syrian refugee children, finding that an overwhelming majority are not enrolled in school in Turkey, partly as a result of language barriers, and that about half suffer from Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression. The present study was designed as an innovative intervention using an online, game-based learning intervention for refugee children, named Project Hope. Data gathered from a controlled field experiment show significant improvements in Turkish language acquisition, coding, executive functioning and overall sense of hopefulness. Implications for policy, practice and research are discussed.

Bridging serious games and participatory design

International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 2014

Participatory design (PD) has become widely popular within the interaction design community, but to date has had little influence within serious game design processes. We argue that serious game design complicates the notion of involving users as co-designers, as serious game designers must be fluent with both domain content and game design. In this paper, we share our experiences of using PD during the design process of a serious game. We present observations stemming from attempts to apply the existing PD methods of brainstorming and storyboarding. Reflecting on the shortcomings of these methods, we go on to propose a novel PD method that leverages two fundamental qualities of serious games-domain expertise and procedurality-to scaffold players' existing knowledge and make co-design of serious games an attainable goal.