Unplugged

For our 14th Annual Game Design Challenge we're unplugging from our phones, tablets, and computers...

Since 2008 we have been challenging video game makers everywhere with our Life.Love. Game Design Challenge to design compelling prosocial video games for violence prevention. This year the challenge remains the same -- but now the games will be unplugged! We are looking for those games which are known by many names and categories: Board Games, Card Games, Paper Games, Tabletop Games.

We will just refer to them as: unplugged games.

Life Love Publishing

Life Love Publishing is the publishing subsidiary for Jennifer Ann's Group, a nonprofit organization focused on prevention of teen dating violence. Since 2008 Jennifer Ann's Group has been producing award-winning prosocial video games for students, educators, and parents through its Gaming Against Violence program and annual Life.Love. Game Design Challenge. This year's contest is open to everybody around the world aged 13 and older (minors will need a parent or guardian to sign the prize acceptance agreement in the event they are selected as a Finalist). The games should be designed to be generally appropriate for ages 13 and over. And, as has been true since 2008: the games cannot contain any depictions of violence. (Contest FAQs and Official Rules are available here.)

Previous game challenges have focused on a variety of topics and themes including consent, culture, and gaslighting. Life Love Publishing will manage this year's game design challenge and will be responsible for publishing the games.

This year's game design theme is Power & Control.

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14th Annual Game Design Challenge Timeline

Can you design a non-violent unplugged game that will help those who play it better understand the role and impact of Power & Control in dating relationships? The Unplugged Game Challenge consists of two rounds:

Round One consists of submitting a proposed game pitch. This entails answering the five questions and providing other registration data on the game registration form. These five questions are provided in the Power & Control section if you'd like to review them before registering.

Round Two is limited to 10 Finalists which will be selected from the Round One proposed game pitch submissions. You do not need to be a game developer or game designer in order to become a Finalist - you just need to have a clever idea that you believe would translate well into a compelling game about the impact of power & control on dating relationships!

    Unplugged Game Contest Timeline
  • ✔ Round One: Game pitches were due by end of day on September 26, 2021.
  • ✔ Finalists selected by October 3, 2021.
  • ✔ Round Two: Completed games were due by end of day on October 24, 2021.
  • ✔ Judging and critiquing of games through December 11, 2021.
  • ✔ Winning game announced December 12, 2021: 'The Big Build Up' by Lien Tran & Lynn Baus.

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Mark Danger Chen

Dr. Mark Danger Chen

Mark Danger Chen is an independent games scholar and part-time professor of interaction design, qualitative research, and games studies at the University of Washington Bothell. They oversee Esoteric Gaming, an alternative publication outlet that celebrates gaming diversity through detailed accounts of arcane and marginal gaming practices. Mark also wrote Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of an Expert Player Group in World of Warcraft, an ethnographic account of how a new team learned to excel through the use of game mods and then died in a fiery meltdown catalyzed by the same mods. In a previous life, Mark was a webmaster and game designer for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Mark wants a die-cast 1st generation Soundwave for Christmas. You can reach Mark at @mcdanger.

Hannah Corcoran

Hannah Corcoran

Hannah Corcoran is a junior producer at Auroch Digital, a freelance artist, and a registered Member of the British Psychological Society. Holding both a BSc and MS in Psychology from Lancaster University, her passion for the arts and gaming often spilled into her studies. This interest in the intersection of games and psychology led her to volunteer as a research assistant for the psychology department's Game Lab; here she worked alongside Sunway University to investigate how the portrayal of violence against women in video games effects attitudes to women in the real world.

Brian Crecente

Brian Crecente

Brian Crecente founded video gaming site Kotaku and co-founded Polygon. He was also the video games editor for Rolling Stone and for Variety and wrote a weekly gaming column for McClatchy-Tribune News Service for about a decade. He currently consults for publishers and the video game industry. Past and current clients include The Washington Post, LEGO, Minute Media, Survios, and Epic Games. He can be reached at Pad and Pixel.

Drew Crecente, JD

Drew Crecente, JD

Drew Crecente is founder of games publisher Life Love Publishing and the executive director of Jennifer Ann's Group, a nonprofit charity preventing teen dating violence. Drew is also a teen dating violence lead at Emory's Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRCE) and a published researcher on violence prevention through prosocial video games. Drew speaks at conferences about the use of video games for positive change. His speaking engagements include GDC, Games for Change, Games for Health, and National Youth at Risk conferences. Drew has produced many prosocial games intentionally designed for violence prevention including Culture Overlord, Rispek Danis, and Sea of Roses.

Ruud Jacobs

Dr. Ruud Jacobs

Ruud Jacobs is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication Science of the University of Twente. His research is mediapsychological, mostly focusing on the impacts of persuasive games and the ways in which they work to change attitudes. In 2017 he defended his dissertation, titled 'Playing to Win Over', as part of the Persuasive Gaming in Context joint research effort. Ruud lectures in technological aspects of communication science, and talks about games whenever he can.

Dr. Krista-Lee Meghan Malone

Dr. Krista-Lee Meghan Malone

Dr. Krista-Lee M. Malone is a faculty associate with the Department of Curriculum & Instruction’s Game Design Certificate at UW-Madison. Her past research includes studies on raiding guilds in World of Warcraft, the making of educational games in Taiwan (where she concurrently worked as a designer and consultant) and using game design to teach in the social sciences. Dr. Malone is currently working on designing engaging educational games as well as examining gender issues and educational uses of Twitch.tv and Discord. She is also a board member of MKEsports, an alliance aimed at positively growing the culture and connectivity of regional esports groups, gamers, businesses, and community partners. If you want to geek out with her, she can can be found experimenting with teaching at twitch.tv/profgameranthro and experimenting with everything else at twitch.tv/gameranthro.

Dr. E. L. Richeson

Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson

Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson is a Psychologist in El Paso, Texas, the head of the Advisory Board for Jennifer Ann's Group, and former president of the Texas Psychological Foundation. She was recognized as the 2018 Psychologist of the Year by the Texas Psychological Association, is an expert on teen dating violence, appears regularly on news and talk shows, and lectures nationwide on a variety of issues related to teenagers, young adults, and healthy relationships.

Jo Sharpen

Jo Sharpen

Jo Sharpen is a specialist in violence against women and girls, child development and the impacts of trauma. She has a special interest in how the online space can be used to support and empower survivors of abuse. Jo is now a freelance consultant after previously being the director of policy at AVA, a national UK charity.

Dr. Sarah Stang

Dr. Sarah Stang

Dr. Sarah Stang recently received her PhD from the Communication & Culture program at York University in Toronto, Canada. She is the editor-in-chief of the game studies journal Press Start and the former essays editor for the academic middle-state publication First Person Scholar. Her published work has focused primarily on gender representation in digital games and Dungeons & Dragons and has been featured in journals such as Games & Culture, Game Studies, Human Technology, and Loading. Her current research explores the intersection of gender, hybridity, and monstrosity in science fiction and fantasy games and other media. You can reach out to her on Twitter or smstang.com.

Joe Wasserman

Joe Wasserman

Joe Wasserman is a public health researcher at RTI International, where he primarily evaluates the effectiveness of innovations in health care delivery, payment, and systems. In a past life as a media psychologist, his research on boardgaming focused on learning, skill acquisition, and systems thinking. You can find this work and reach Joe at joewasserman.com.

Unplugged Game Design Challenge Prizes

  • All Finalists who submit their completed games by the deadline will receive $100.
  • All Finalists will be granted a license to use the FINALIST graphic.
  • All Finalists will have their games judged and critiqued by industry experts. Judges to be announced soon.
  • One Finalist game will be selected to receive an additional $500 prize.
  • The Winning game will be granted a license to use the WINNER graphic.
  • Finalist and Winning games will be promoted on Jennifer Ann's Group's websites and in press releases.
  • More details are available in the Unplugged Game Design Challenge Rules.

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Power & Control

Although there are a number of factors contributing to dating violence, much of the unhealthy or abusive behavior in a dating relationship involves power & control in some fashion. For example:

  • An abuser might threaten, coerce, or intimidate their partner in order to be able to control their actions.
  • Abusers might engage in psychological manipulation or emotional abuse in order to more easily control their partner by, for example, diminishing their self worth. Abusers might even cause their partner to doubt their own sense of reality, as is the case in gaslighting.
  • Power imbalances also play a critical role in determining issues like consent. Can one party truly consent to the other party if there is a large power imbalance between them?

Power & Control in the Unplugged Game Design Challenge

Although we welcome games with compelling narratives about power & control in abusive relationships, we also welcome games that are less direct. For example, games can also examine power, control, and their impacts and implications by using allegory or other rhetorical devices.

Unplugged: Power & Control Game Design Challenge Process

If you registered for the contest you would have had the opportunity to answer the questions below. You are pitching an idea for a non-violent prosocial game which will help players of your game have a better understanding of the role and implications of power & control in dating relationships.

If you can envision a game that helps the player recognize, understand, and appreciate how power & control is used in dating relationships, and as a result are then better equipped to avoid or otherwise mitigate its negative impacts then that is a game we would love to play. We hope you'll craft a proposal around that game and submit it to the power & control game challenge.

✔ Round One: Were due by September 26, 2021

These game design questions and other registration questions are on the contest form, linked below.

  • Q1: What is the title of your power & control game?

  • Q2: Write a short description of your power & control game. After reading your description players should want to start playing your game! (100 - 150 words)

  • Q3: How will your game use graphics, fonts, color, and visual appeal to engage, inform, and demonstrate to players about power & control in dating relationships and how this can impact those affected? (100 - 150 words)

  • Q4: How will your game effectively use storytelling, rhetoric, and/or game mechanics to engage, inform, and demonstrate to players about the role of power & control in dating relationships and the impact this can have? (100 - 150 words)

  • Q5: How will your game effectively use social and emotional persuasion to engage, inform, and demonstrate to players about the role of power & control and its impact in dating relationships? (100 - 150 words)

Round Two: Games are due by October 24, 2021

Finalists will be notified by October 3, 2021 if their proposed game pitch has been selected to move on to Round Two of the contest. Round Two will begin October 3, 2021 and Finalists will have until October 24, 2021 to design, develop, and complete their game about power & control in relationships. The finished games will then be reviewed and scored to determine the winner.

► Details regarding technical requirements, final judging guidelines, and any other pertinent information will be distributed to the Finalists.

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14th Annual Life.Love. Game Design Challenge

Our annual competition is always unique. This year's game design challenge is more unique than usual. Instead of video games we are looking for physical games that you can keep on playing long after the power has gone out and the batteries have run dry. They can be single player games or multiplayer games. We're excited to see what you come up with!

Unplugged

No video games for this contest! We've unplugged for this year's game design challenge and hope that you'll join us.

Power & Control

For this year's contest we are exploring the role and impact of power & control in dating relationships.

No Violence

As always, the games must not include any violence. This constraint has led to the development of dozens of clever non-violent games since 2008.

Prizes

Win prizes and acclaim with your clever idea for an unplugged game. All finalists will win $100 and a chance to win an extra $500!

Judging

Games will be judged and critiqued by established game designers, game journalists, psychologists, university professors, researchers, and other experts.

Game Ideas

What do you think of when you hear power & control? Is this an idea you could use to create an innovative game exploring how it might be used... or abused?

Game Formats

Will your game idea include a board? Should it? How would it be different if you used one - or didn't?

Random

Will your game incorporate any random-based game mechanic like dice or spinners? Or something else?

Game Pieces

How about game pieces? Will you create printable custom pieces for your game?

Where are you?

Over the years we have received game entries from many countries. Do you have a game idea that represents your culture? All of us become richer when we are exposed to a wide variety of perspectives. Will you share yours with us?

Puzzle

Or do you have an idea for a puzzle based game? Is it a game to be played alone or do players take turns playing? Or is it a group effort?

Jennifer Ann's Group

Whatever your game looks like we hope you will register for our annual game design challenge! Jennifer Ann's Group believes in the power of games to engage and empower young people. We'd ♥ to see what you will make.

Registration for the 14th Annual Life.Love. Game Design Challenge ended September 26, 2021

The contest is underway, please follow as we share updates on this year's prosocial game design contest.

► The 2021 theme is Power & Control
► This year the games are unplugged!
► The game should not contain themes too mature for age 13.
► The game cannot contain violence.
► The FAQs and official rules have more details.

  • To be notified of future contests and this year's winners please sign up for our games newsletter.