title: Examining key design decisions involved in developing a serious game for child sexual abuse prevention.
abstract: This paper presents a case study of the key decisions made in the design of Orbit, a child sexual abuse prevention computer game targeted at school students between 8 and 10 years of age. Key decisions include providing supported delivery for the target age group, featuring adults in the program, not over-sanitizing game content, having a focus on building healthy self-concept of players, making the game engaging and relatable for all players and evaluating the program. This case study has implications for the design of Serious Games more generally, including that research should underpin game design decisions, game designers should consider ways of bridging the game to real life, the learning that arises from the game should go beyond rote-learning, designers should consider how the player can make the game-world their own and comprehensive evaluations of Serious Games should be undertaken.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Arts and Business, Engage Research Cluster, School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Colleen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stieler-Hunt
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Arts and Business, Engage Research Cluster, School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Christian M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Arts and Business, Engage Research Cluster, School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rolfe
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Arts and Business, Engage Research Cluster, School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: Kay
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pozzebon
keywords: child protection; personal safety program; serious game design; serious games; sexual abuse; video games