Rewinding

School bullying is an old yet continuing problem in society, which is still one of the most highly concerned social issues globally. “Rewinding” aims to draw people’s attention to school bullying mainly through a web-based single-player mystery text game.

This project is not aiming to solve the problem of school bullying, but rather to reveal the situation in more acceptable ways, i.e. gaming and storytelling. The mechanism of chamber escaping games and the technique of non-linear storytelling are applied in the design of the game, which helps to review several bully cases that happened among the four main characters. The potential players of the game are mainly students of all genders.

Team

Ines Yin, Silvia Lin, Trefrane Xie

Mentor

Oksana Kryzhanivska

Duration

Sept. 2019 - Dec. 2019

My Contribution

Research

Narrative Design

UI Design

Storyboard

Game Making

Testing

Video Editing

Video

School bullying is still one of the most highly concerned social issues globally. According to the literature reviewed, the experiences of being bullied can deeply influence students' physical and mental health. Scholars and social researchers have been working hard on figuring out ways to reduce and intervene in such phenomena, while films and tv programs' producers have revealed relevant problems in their works.

There are potentials to target more people by ethically applying games and narratives.

Background and
Literature Review

Film Review

These films and television show have all talked about school bullying and its negative effects on people either mentally or physically. Different ways of conducting school bullying have been revealed and depicted in these films and tv show.

Article and Book Review

Articles and books about school bullying, including introduction to the causes of bullying, the influences of school bullying and the methods for interventions and reducing school bullying, were reviewed. Article and book about games and interactive fiction were also reviewed, which provide explanations and examples of text-based games. Games seem to be a mediator for transmitting cultures and social phenomena. Also, textual based interactive fictions can provide an immersive experience.

Literature Review

Narrative Design and Ethical Concerns

To create an immersive narrative for the audiences without causing ethical issues, I have referred to the article Uncomfortable Interactions for ethical guidelines. Although the article is mainly about physical experiences, Benford et al. (2012) draw out that an appropriate uncomfortable interaction is conducive to improve the atmosphere of climax in narration, so as to improve memory points and realize entertainment, enlightenment, and sociality, but at the same time, we should also pay attention to the degree of discomfort and provide participants with rights such as free choice and privacy.

Therefore, the narrative was designed with certain ethical concerns:

A warning was designed at the beginning to remind players of the possible discomfort of the contents, and tell them that they can quit at any time;
Players have the right to choose different roles voluntarily according to the role introduction;
The degree of violence and characters' dialogues were strictly controlled and seriously concerned in the narrative design, considering that our potential players will mainly be students;
The platform does not necessarily require private information (anonymous player or guest mode) so that people can join in without worrying about being under surveillance.

Narrative Design

Rewinding Initial Storyboard

Game Design and Storyboarding

One core features of a game include giving players certain choices. Choices as turning points are involved in our game design, which will lead to some differences in subsequent plots of the narrative.

A storyboard was generated while carrying out the narrative design for having a better grasp of the overall design of the game.
Developing a storyboard has to involve the consideration of specific scenes, so a clear concept of the overall scenes and spatial structures was needed. I roughly sketched a floor plan as the basis for our storyboarding.

Options in the game

Sample of options in the game.

Floor Plan

Floor plan of the overall setting in the narrative of the game.

Game Design

Prototyping, Testing
and Iterations

After the storyboard was built, the game was made by using AVG Maker Editor, a game editor by the Chengguang platform.

I had first made a rough prototype by using the initial sketches and scripts, and invited potential players to test the game design for us to get some initial feedback.

Testing Video

Feedback

"I need a more obvious hint on the screen to tell me where to click on." - Rita

"The visual design, for now, is a bit messy, which has somehow affected my engagement in the game." - Beth

"The overall scenario design in the game seems so cool. But the narrative is not completedly shown now. Adding characters and dialogues and improving the drawings of the scenes may be better. Can't wait to see the final outcome!" - Dawn

"You may not need characters' images at the beginning of the game. Giving some descriptions of them could be good enough." - Ace

Rewinding Final Storyboard

The final storyboard of the game with illustration and refined scripts.

Considering the initial comments and suggestions, a new storyboard was created with the new illustration of the scenes Trefane drawn and the refined script of the narrative I generated. I developed the game following the storyboard on the platform by combining and structuring the UI elements I designed, the scenes Trefane illustrated, and the characters Silvia created on the platform.

Testing and modifying kept continued until a satisfactory outcome was designed.