Gaming Against Violence

🚀 Wow!

It's great to see so many schools sharing our games with students as we near the end of school here!

Some of our trauma-informed prosocial games offer free lesson plans and slide decks.

✅ All games are free,
✅ contain no ads, and
✅ respect your privacy!

🌐 https://jag.itch.io

#indiegame #education #resilience #consent #violence #prevention #CriticalThinking #MediaLiteracy #PublicHealth #teaching @stopTDV@games.ngo @stopTDV@mastodon.social @stoptdv.bsky.social

@Tutanota@mastodon.social

Our violence-prevention games were removed by Google Play years ago.*

It's great to know folks will still be able to sideload these free award-winning games. 🧡Adolescents around the world will be helped by this.

*Google claimed these games about #consent and #HealthyRelationships were mis-classified as educational.

@musicvsartstuff@techhub.social

Time to Explain!

An award-winning #puzzle video game that uses an innovative time-loop mechanism to explore #communication in outer space.

A free browser game.
Appropriate for all ages.

🎮 https://jag.itch.io/time

#Renpy

@elena@aseachange.com @emilymbender@dair-community.social @cwebber@social.coop @tante@tldr.nettime.org

We will resist #toxic attitudes and beliefs with a new game design challenge to protect teens from #toxicmasculinity!
🎮 @toxify@games.ngo

(And while we're at it also teach them 🎮 #consent and 🎮 #criticalthinking! )

🧡 All FREE for teens, educators, & parents. From the nonprofit @stopTDV@games.ngo

Spring forward for #intlwomensday ♥️

@consentgame@games.ngo
@CriticalThinkingGames@games.ngo

@Gina@fosstodon.org @fdroidorg@floss.social

Possibly. We might try this with a new game -- which is designed from the beginning with the intention of making it open source.

Several of the games we've published were developed using open source: Ren'Py, Twine, and Godot.

But, nearly all of the games are narrative-based with themes and tone that are safe for players. We need to find (or define) a model that incorporates the freedom of open source while respecting the boundaries of being trauma-informed.

This might share some philosophy with Mastodon - balancing the freedom to speak within a framework which allow others to not be subjected to or harmed by that speech.

We will probably try this but might create something that open source folks consider to not be completely open source - and trauma-informed folks do not truly trust -- but this is worth exploring.

We have had conversations around this concept several times in the past year.

We will be certain to reach out to the OSS community as we explore this more fully. Thank you.

🗨️ Am I Doing this Right?

Q: My eight year old always wants to play video games. Curbing screen time by setting limits is a struggle. What can I do better?

A: Research suggests a difference between scrolling through social media ... watching an educational video ... and playing video games.

Q: My 12-year-old is witnessing bullying. How can I encourage my child to be a positive agent of change?

A: “When kids have confidence that their actions will truly make a difference, they are more likely to step up ....”

🌐 https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/am_i_doing_this_right_school_aged_kids_edition

#screentime #education #parenting #bystander #bullying #publichealth #prevention #family #socialmedia

@ryanprior@mastodon.social

The point here is not to control -- instead, there is a goal to inform and a duty to protect.

Here, trauma-informed means, among other things, the games incorporate *safety features* and include *reliable information*.

For example:
▪️ Games teaching consent are *ineffective* if they teach non-consensual acts.
▪️ Also, consent games are *harmful* if they are intentionally triggering.

Typically, open source would allow others to add narrative or graphics which goes against these principles; revisions might be false or triggering.

Although it might be possible to protect the core story and allow, e.g., side-treks or graphical variants, the revised content requires curation or moderation.

Some form of governance is necessary because, in the absence of guardrails, players could not *trust* the games to be trauma-informed.

But such games might not be considered open source.

We might explore this approach in a future game.

@hstone519@mastodon.social

Then the NRA might lose some of its funding...