JAGgame | Emotional Health and Wellness Games for Young People

MushWhom?

Collin Lang, Knitwit Studios, USA

Critical Thinking Game

Figure it Sprout

Quang Nguyen, David Li, Gaby Sanchez, Kitty Huang

Critical Thinking Game

One New Message

Eloise Best, England

Resilience and Stress Management

UnEarth

Robin Ghosh, Canada

Communication & Conflict Resolution

Culture Overlord

Lucas Vially, France

2022 Games for Change Awards Finalist

Lamplight Hollow

Luciano Sgarbi, UK

2020 #JungleJam Winner!

Rispek Danis

World Vision Vanuatu & Jennifer Ann's Group

2019 Games For Change Awards Finalist

ADRIFT

Quinn Crossley and Andrew Connell, USA

A family-friendly game about consent

Stuck in a Dark Place

Another Kind, Belgium

A serious game about consent

HONEYMOON

Sandra Lara Castillo, England

Healthy dating relationship game

TDV Quiz

Jennifer Ann's Group, USA

Teen Dating Violence Quiz for Alexa

Grace's Diary

GPTouch, Thailand

A resurrected Flash classic

From the Gaming Against Violence program

Presented by

As seen on

Teen Dating Violence and video games

Teen dating violence is the physical, sexual, or psychological/emotional violence in a dating relationship. Although this problem is called 'teen dating violence' our focus is not just on teenagers but also on tweens (11 and 12 year olds) as well as young adults in their early twenties. This form of relationship violence is distinguished from people who are married or generally have greater experience in dating relationships. This disinction is important because people with relatively little dating experience will have greater difficulty knowing if some aspects of a relationship are "normal" or not.

Although physical or sexual abuse in a dating relationship is fairly easy to define and identify, other forms of abuse like emotional or psychological abuse are not as easy to explain because they depend a great deal on context. This nuanced aspect of dating abuse is one aspect of what makes it difficult to teach young people about what is - and what isn't - healthy or acceptable. However, this contextual component is also what makes our use of video games an ideal solution.

The majority of the video games on JAGga.me focus on teen dating violence and come from an annual video game design contest sponsored by Jennifer Ann's Group, the sponsor of JAGga.me. The Life.Love. Game Design Challenge has been rewarding video game developers for producing video games about teen dating violence since 2008.

Changing attitudes about teen dating violence and increasing awareness is critical to preventing future abuse. Teen dating violence has been shown to be linked to a number of unhealthy behaviors including:

Increased alcohol and drug use.

Teen girls are six times more likely to become pregnant.

Greater chance of eating disorders, self harm, and suicidal ideation.

Dropping out of school.

Greatly increased chance of being in an abusive relationship as an adult, contributing to a cycle of domestic violence.

Jennifer Ann's Group produces video games as an effective tool to prevent dating violence through awareness, education, and advocacy. To learn more about the history of Jennifer Ann's Group's and its other programs designed to prevent teen dating violence visit JenniferAnn.org.

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Research on the Prevention of Teen Dating Violence through Video Games

Video games have been shown to be effective in changing attitudes about abusive behavior, increasing knowledge of dating violence, and increasing awareness of teen dating violence. "'It's like you're actually playing as yourself': Development and Preliminary evaluation of 'Green Acres High', a serious game-based primary intervention to combat adolescent dating violence" from CAVA shares their success in using a video game to change attitudes about abusive behavior in the UK, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium.

You can read more about Jennifer Ann's Group use of video games to prevent dating violence in the journal article written by Jennifer Ann's Group Executive Director "Gaming Against Violence: A Grassroots Approach to Teen Dating Violence" (subscription) in the August 2014 issue of Games for Health Journal.

Jennifer Ann's Group has also conducted its own research (2016) into the effectiveness of their games. Their findings show that the majority of participants showed a change in attitude about negative relationship beliefs in only 20 - 45 minutes. This research has not yet been published but once it is this will be updated with a link to the publication. Please sign up to be notified of this and other items of interest regarding the efforts of Jennifer Ann's Group.

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How to Play HTML5 Video Games

HTML5 games can be played in most modern web browsers. Current versions of most major browsers support HTML5. If you are having difficulty playing this game ensure that your browser is the current version.

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How to Play Unity Web Player Video Games

Unity web player games can be played in most modern web browsers but require a browser plugin. If you do not already have the Unity plugin, you will automatically be prompted to install it. Visit Unity for more information about the Unity Web Player.

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ADRIFT: a game about consent

"ADRIFT: a game about consent" from Quinn Crossley and Andrew Connell is an award-winning game about consent from the Life.Love. Game Design Challenge.

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Stuck in a Dark Place: A serious game about consent

"Stuck in a Dark Place: A serious game about consent" from Another Kind in Belgium is the award-winning game about consent from the Life.Love. Game Design Challenge.

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Honeymoon

"Honeymoon" from Sandra Lara Castillo (SNDR) of of UK / Spain is a 2016 award-winning video game about dating relationships.

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Jennifer Ann's Group is a nonprofit public charity working to prevent teen dating violence through awareness, education, and advocacy. The Atlanta-based organization was created in 2006 in memory of Jennifer Ann Crecente, a high school senior who was killed by her ex-boyfriend.

Since 2008 Jennifer Ann's Group has run an annual competition, the Life.Love. Game Design Challenge, to challenge and reward video game developers for producing video games about teen dating violence.

To learn more about Jennifer Ann's Group's use of video games to prevent violence visit JenniferAnn.org.

Please share and follow Jennifer Ann's Group on Mastodon, Pinterest, and Facebook.

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Privacy and Security Policy

This website is presented by Jennifer Ann's Group. Our privacy policy is clear:

We will collect no personal information about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us.

Here is how we handle information about your visit to our website:

Internet Security Policy

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally.

We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

1. The Internet domain (for example, "xcompany.com" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access our website;
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access our site;
3. The date and time you access our site;
4. The pages you visit; and
5. If you linked to this website from another website, the address of the referring website.

We use this information to help us track the number of visitors to our site and the types of technology (e.g. web browser, device) our visitors use to ensure that we are providing useful and usable content. We do not track or record information about individuals and their visits.

If You Send Us Personal Information

If you choose to provide us with personal information by sending an e-mail to the organization, or by filling out a form with your personal information and submitting it through our website, we use that information to respond to your message and to help us provide you with the information that you have requested. The information you provide is not given to any other organizations or people. Jennifer Ann's Group does not collect or use information for commercial marketing.

Links to Other Sites

Our website has links to external websites. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

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