Cassandra Shank

Stockton University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Center

Bystander Intervention: An Interactive Game​ - Do you want to be someone’s hero?

Bystander Intervention: An Interactive Game lets you swoop into different situations and save
the day. The game begins by giving the player basic information needed to play. Once the player
reads through the information, they are able to choose their character. The characters are all
taken through the same story, but have different supporting characters and different transitions
between the stages of the game. Bystander intervention is involved in gameplay because the
characters start off as a bystander in a situation, and are able to act in various ways that reflect
the three possible actions of intervention- direct, delegate, and distract. Stockton University’s
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Center runs a program called Green Dot which is related to
bystander intervention. This game provides individuals with basic information on bystander
intervention which can build into the Green Dot training that they facilitate.
 Game Design Document
Hook
Bystander Intervention: An Interactive Game is a video game that will allow civilians to
become superheros without the hassle of getting bit by a spider or experimented on by a
government agency. This game takes players through a variety of scenarios in which the player
can make decisions on how to react to each one. These reactions can impact the individuals
involved and have the potential to save those in distress if the right decisions are made. Oh, and
did I mention that you can even choose your own hero?

Connection
The community partner for this game is the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Center.
This center at Stockton University holds a training in what they call “Green Dot.” Green Dot
training teaches students how to perform bystander intervention in order to make a difference in
the community. Bystander Intervention typically deals with interpersonal power-based violence
and Green Dot helps individuals to know the different ways that they could handle a situation
when it occurs. Getting involved in a situation that you are a bystander of can be difficult, and
this game will help to provide a basic understanding of how individuals can react in situations in
order to make a positive impact on the situation. The community partner plans to include the
game in an online pamphlet about bystander intervention and the Green Dot program.

Gameplay
Bystander Intervention: An Interactive Game is a role-playing game with interactive
stories. Players are given some basic information to begin the game and are then teleported into
the game’s universe which is in Galloway, NJ in the year 2018 Players will take the role of a
character that they have chosen and are tasked to make different decisions to impact the outcome
of different situations. Players have the goal of choosing the decision that will make the most
positive outcome which will bring the player to a different level of the game. Players will work
on their own to make decisions, but can receive assistance from their best friend in the game, a
non-player character, who can give hints or insights on a situation. Players will win the game
when they have successfully handled all of the different story levels in the game.

Off-Label Play
Individuals are able to participate in off-label play if they purposefully make decisions
that are incorrect for each situation. In order to combat this issue, the levels are not able to be
passed until the player makes the best decision for the scenario. This way, the player would be
wasting their own time by participating in this type of off-label play. Players could cheat by not
properly reading the informational passages in the game. The structure of the game does not
really allow for prevention of this, so as a game developer I have to rely on players to be honest
and read the passages.

Game Setting
This game takes place in the September of 2018 in Galloway, New Jersey which is
located in the United States of America. After giving background information to the player, the
game begins on Stockton University’s Galloway Campus. The player will start making decisions
in their dorm room and be dragged all around campus by their roommate and best friend. The
dorm is a plain dorm room with the walls a sterile white color and the air smells like the popcorn
your roommate burned last night in your microwave. After some convincing, your roommate
convinces you to go to a party at a local fraternity house. The house is disorderly on the inside
when the player enters. The party seems to already be in full swing with red solo cups littered all
over the floors. The player can smell the ripe smell of alcohol that burns their nose as they enter
the house. After facing a situation in the main room of the house, the player steps outside to the
backyard in order to catch their breath. The air is slightly humid but cool enough for the player to
collect their thoughts. The moon is glowing and the stars are shining with little cloud coverage.
The player can smell the slightest smell of marijuana. The player is soon interrupted by another
situation that they have to face. The player decides to look for their roommate and runs into yet
another situation in the kitchen. You can see the copious amounts of alcohol that is offered here.
Your friend is grabbing themselves a drink when you see someone slip a pill into their cup. After
this situation, you and your friend decide to leave the party. The two characters head to a fast
food restaurant in order to fill their stomachs. The smell of old grease is prominent when the
character rolls down their window to order. The smell is pungent, yet it makes the player’s
stomach growl. The two characters are eating their food in the parking lot and encounter the next
situation. The parking lot only has a few cars in it, presumably most from the workers inside.

Game Characters
The character that the player chooses represents themselves acting in a situation. The
main character’s roommate is a non-player character who is able to provide assistance in
decision making for multiple of the situations. Other characters in the game include those who
are involved in the different scenarios which include a perpetrator and a victim. These two main
character roles are portrayed by both men and women. The perpetrators at the beginning of the
situations are consistently acting against the bystander and the victim, and in some cases their
attitudes shift based on the decision the player makes. The victim’s attitude ranges from being
transparent that they want help from the bystander to expressing that a situation is neutral and
does not need help. The victim’s different attitudes are formed to be representative of possible
real-life scenarios that the player might encounter.

Game World
The key locations of the game are at the dorms of Stockton University, a fraternity house,
and a fast food restaurant. Time in the game shifts based on the complexity of each situation and
some decisions that are made can shorten the interaction time. When the game skips in time, it is
displayed to the player. All of the scenarios take place in one night, so the weather is fairly
consistent.

Game Audience
The game should be played in a private setting. When individuals are alone, they are
likely to make the decisions that align most with their morals and attitudes. Players can find the
game if they are involved with Stockton’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Center. The intended
age range for this game is anyone college-level and above. Information might be sensitive to
people in this age-range and can be inappropriate for younger audiences. I plan to put a warning
notice at the very beginning of the game before the information is given. This notice will warn
players about sensitive and potentially triggering content and have the players agree that they are
17 years old or older and that they acknowledge the sensitive information.
 Timeline
Development of Game Idea: September 21 - October 20
● Outlining different issues in the community at Stockton University and the potential
games that could help with each issue. At this point, I chose the topic of bystander
intervention.
● Once an issue was chosen, research needed to be done on which community partners
could use a game with the chosen issue. At this point, I chose to partner with Stockton
University’s Women’s, gender, and Sexuality Center.
● When the community partner was chosen, I met with the community partner to see what
they wanted out of the game and how to format the game.
Design Phase: October 20 - November 2
● Once information was gathered from the community partner and online resources, the
initial game idea was formed. Basic information about the beginning game draft was to
make the game a Twine game that took a character through three serious situations and
gave the player options on how to handle the situations.
● The player began the game with character selection on who they would be playing as.
Development of these characters was essential to game play experience. I did research on
how to form different characters and made sure to make the characters diverse. From the
research I had done, it was shown that diverse characters in games had an impact on the
takeaway from a game.
Production: November 2 - December 14
● From the ideas produced in the design phase, the software Twine was used in order to
make a story type of game.
● Once the main information and codes were added, pictures were added to enhance the
player’s experience.
● Since the photos were all formatted differently, it took some extra time to uniform the
images.
 Selected Bibliography
Boduszek, Daniel, et al. “Prosocial Video Game as an Intimate Partner Violence
Prevention Tool among Youth: A Randomised Controlled Trial.” Computers in Human
Behavior, vol. 93, 2019, pp. 260–266., doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.12.028.
Calvo-Morata, Antonio, et al. “Serious Games to Prevent and Detect Bullying and
Cyberbullying: A Systematic Serious Games and Literature Review.” Computers &
Education, vol. 157, 2020, p. 103958., doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103958.
Gale, Mark Thomas. “Gameplay in Higher Education: The Use of Serious Games vs
Traditional Instructional Methods in Learning.” Graduate Faculty of Auburn University
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2011.
Marda, Maria. “Enhancing Deeper Learning Using Empathy and Creativity in
Role-Playing Serious Games.” Westminster Research, 2020, pp. 30–219.
“Master the 3 ‘D‘s of Bystander Intervention.” Marine Corps Community,
www.usmc-mccs.org/articles/master-the-3-d-s-of-bystander-intervention/.
Pereira, Gonçalo, et al. “Serious Games for Personal and Social Learning & Ethics:
Status and Trends.” Procedia Computer Science, vol. 15, 2012, pp. 53–65.,
doi:10.1016/j.procs.2012.10.058.
Riemer, Valentin, and Claudia Schrader. “Learning with Quizzes, Simulations, and
Adventures: Students' Attitudes, Perceptions and Intentions to Learn with Different
Types of Serious Games.” Computers & Education, vol. 88, 2015, pp. 160–168.,
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2015.05.003.
Rodriguez, Diana, et al. “A Serious Game about Bullying.” 2013.
Scholes, Laura, et al. “Serious Games for Learning: Games-Based Child Sexual Abuse
Prevention in Schools.” International Journal of Inclusive Education, vol. 18, no. 9, 2014,
pp. 934–956., doi:10.1080/13603116.2013.860195.
“The Three D’s of D.O.T Intervention: Direct, Distract, and Delegate.” UTEP,
www.utep.edu/initiatives/dot/about/green-dot-programs.html.
Zubković, Barbara Rončević, et al. “The Role of Experience during Playing Bullying
Prevention Serious Game: Effects on Knowledge and Compassion.” Behaviour &
Information Technology, 2020, pp. 1–15., doi:10.1080/0144929x.2020.1813332.
Alonso-Fernandez, Christina, et. al. “Evidence-based evaluation of a serious game to
increase bullying awareness.” Interactive Learning Environments. 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2020.1799031
Mitgutsch, Konstantin and Narda Alvarado. “Purposeful by design?: a serious game
design assessment framework.” Proceedings of the International Conference on the
Foundations of Digital Games. 2012. Pp. 121-128.
https://doi.org/10.1145/2282338.2282364
Mayer, Igor et. al. “A frame-reflective discourse analysis of serious games.” British
Journal of Educational Technology. 2015.​https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12245
 Budget

Stockton University Distinguished Student Fellowship​ - $4,000

● $30 per hour for game designer
○ Approximately 125 hours worth of service = $3,750
● $20 pet hour for digital artist
○ Approximately 10 hours worth of service for characters = $200
● Remaining $50 to technology fees and transportation
Entertainment Software Association Foundation​ - $5,450
● $30 per hour for game designer
○ Approximately 125 hours worth of service = $3,750
● $20 pet hour for digital artist
○ Approximately 10 hours worth of service for characters = $200
● $50 to technology fees and transportation
● $20 per hour for a psychologist to help with phrasing and sensitivity for the topics
discussed in game
○ Approximately 10 hours worth = $200
● $25 dollars per hour for a marketing coordinator for the game
○ Approximately 50 hours worth = $1,250
Games for Change​ - $4,875
● $30 per hour for game designer
○ Approximately 125 hours worth of service = $3,750
● $20 pet hour for digital artist
○ Approximately 10 hours worth of service for characters = $200
● $50 to technology fees and transportation
● $20 per hour for a psychologist to help with phrasing and sensitivity for the topics
discussed in game
○ Approximately 10 hours worth = $200
● $25 dollars per hour for a marketing coordinator for the game
○ Approximately 25 hours worth = $625
 Statement of support from community partner

The game “Bystander Intervention: An Interactive Game” was created with information and
resources given by Rebecca Longo at Stockton University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality
Center.

____________________________
Rebecca Longo
Assistant Director of Women's Gender & Sexuality Center