Principal game designer at Milo Creative
Designed an educational game for the charity Tender. The game is being used at SEN schools to prevent young people becoming victims or perpretrators of abuse.
What is Relationship Goals
Engage with sensitive topics
Allows SEND students to “rehearse” for real-life scenarios, exploring their rights, expectations and choices in relationships in a fun and age-appropriate way.
Meaningful narrative choices
The players choices determine the health of the Relationship and Romance score that they have with each character. Choices are linked to one of the learning outcomes for each level.
Highly accessible design
The game is designed with accessbility in mind and allows students to play at their own pace.
My role
I worked with stakeholders (including the charity, the creative director, school staff and SEND students) to define KPIs and limitations; ran user research and testing in SEND schools; ideated solutions and built a prototype in Unity which we tested in schools with users.
After various successful tests and iterations, I built the pitch document for the charity and documentation for the engineering team.
User research and testing in SEND schools
I designed and ran various user research sessions in SEND schools. This was a particular challenge as the content had to be adapted into fun and educational workshops for the students while still extracting actionable research results.
Prototyping
I prototyped the first version of the game in Unity 3D. It included the core gameplay loop and a full chapter of the game, including characters made in picrew and a full narrative arch written by Tender. I taught the writers narrative design basics and supported them in creating interesting choices.
We took the game to various SEND schools and tested the design in context. We found the game showed potential for lasting, positive impact on how players approach real-life social interactions: empowering them to have healthy, equal relationships that enrich their lives.