Stop Beating Your Wife and Breathe: Students Develop Video Games for Social Change

Can a video game help cystic fibrosis patients improve their breathing technique? Will a virtual space with virtual consequences discourage violent acts against women by South African males? Well, that’s exactly what a group of video game development majors at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont are hoping to find out.

The grant-funded extracurricular project has the students working 10 hours a week on each case study, with their first goal being to understand the mindset of their target audience, in the hopes of developing a game that not only serves a purpose, but entertains as well.

Mindset aside, the students working on the anti-violence game got a taste of reality when they traveled to South Africa, and realized they weren’t any PS3 or 360 fanboys in sight. How do you develop a game when the majority of your target audience doesn’t even own a TV?  You shift your focus to what they do have — cell phones.

I don’t know about you, but if I was developing a portable game meant to discourage violence against women, I’d program it to run on a device that required the gamer to keep both hands on it at all times — maybe even throw in a pair of shackles for good measure. (silence) Did anybody get it? Moving on.

What benefit could a video game have in helping a young cystic fibrosis patient improve upon their breathing exercises? Well, after meeting with several of the patients, the team working on the health oriented game realized that helping fight the boredom that sets in during a repetitive act such as forceful breathing was going to be their main focus.

While both are serious issues in their own right, creating a game that fights boredom sounds much easier than trying to dampen the effects of rage. I’m picturing something along the lines of a racing game that puts you in the driver seat as a high speed oxygen molecule in a race against time for clearer passage ways. They could even hire Michael Bay and load up on the special effects. My breathing just got heavier thinking about it.

The students aren’t being asked to conquer these challenges alone, as each team benefits from having a group of talented professionals across various fields in their corner. Unfortunately, as far as I know, none of them are named Michael Bay.

Source: burlingtonfreepress.com