The Problem
For new researchers in collegiate and professional settings, research ethics can truly be a beast. While it is important to learn about ethics before conducting research, they are presented in the form of mandatory, lengthy training modules that are often clicked through, and do not guarantee retainment of knowledge presented during the training.
The Solution
Academical takes the pedagogical concepts behind responsible conduct of research (RCR) and presents them in the form of an interactive visual novel-style game. Here, players can take turns playing opposing sides of an ethical dilemma. As they alternate between different characters, they can gain a more nuanced take on situations that may come up often in their research environment.
Inspiration
I joined the ALT Games (Alternative Learning Technologies and Games) Lab at the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year. The main investigator, Sam Shields, was eager to have me join as Game Writer for an updated version of their project, Academical. As someone who had designed chatbots in the past, I was looking for more opportunities to explore other areas of narrative and conversation design.
The Process
My first task in the Academical Lab was to update character sheets for Brad and Ned on our wiki, so that the writers could have a reference to the characters' backstories and personalities thus far.
Then each week, I would collaborate with the writers, artists, and investigators to revise the first episode of our new iteration of the game. We would brainstorm ideas of what lesson we were trying to teach in each episode, then create Miro boards to build our thread skeleton and gain a sense of the dialogue flow.
Then, we would finalize the dialogue on spreadsheets that would then be imported to Twine. We also created a visualization using GPT at the end of our first episode to reflect all our threads so far.
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Accomplishments
I was able to create the character sheets for Brad and Ned, which was integral to organizational and writing efforts for the team. I also integrated real ethics cases such as the Milgram experiment into the story, which further implemented pedagogy into our game. I also created skeletons for new threads and wrote dialogue for these threads, as well as updated existing content. As a HCI student, I found it really fulfilling to create a fun game experience for players (users), and imagining what sort of narrative routes I might go down as a player. This sort of user empathy motivated me to create an educational yet captivating narrative experience. Visual novels and RPGs are my favorite game genres, so this truly felt like a passion project for me. Collaborating with a team of writers and artists was key to developing a polished product.
What’s Next
While I'm currently taking a hiatus for my participation in the ALT Games Lab, I hope to resume my participation in the near future. I'd love for Academical to become a completely fleshed out game, and for it to be widely available to researchers based at UC Santa Cruz as well as the researching world at large.