Long Story Hacking Health Presentation

A dating game for the real world

More Info: http://longstorygame.com 1

A dating sim that helps young people sandbox important social skills and learn about intimacy, desire, gender and relationships through play.


CONCEPT PITCHED AT HACKING HEALTH 2012

A game that promotes healthy relationships, self-care and tolerance for diversity might change how youth feel about themselves and behave in real life.


HEALTH BENEFIT

Obtained funding as a research project from Centennial College through the Applied Research and Innovation Centre in early 2013.

Crucial & timely are both words you could use to describe this funding.


SKIN IN THE GAME


THE BUDGET SO FAR

Source Amount Towards Total Centennial College 43,228 Labour – PI &

students

Miriam Verburg 20,000 (in-kind) Labour

Miriam 8360 (cash) Contracts & publicity materials

71,588

Budget from business canvas created December 2012. We need to fundraise the remaining 47,000 to create & test a finished product.

Miguel Martinez Programmer

Yi Pan Artist

JP Stringham Tech Lead

Sara Gross Art Director


LONG STORY PRODUCTION TEAM

Renee Vrandsitis Story Lead

Miriam Verburg Producer

COMMERCIAL PROTOTYPE

Episode with final art & storyline •  Limited functionality •  Limited cast

‘First playable’ development model for functionality

•  Basic functionality first & add ‘peggle’ if the basic version is fun on it’s own.

•  Game can be tested on at least one intended platform

Goal of this prototype is to give the ‘feeling’ of the final product with a limited budget.


Long Story is a new twist on an old genre: A progressive and queer-positive dating

game that helps tweens sandbox healthy relationships and sexuality.

Coming to your school spring 2014



Solve puzzles and build relationships with new friends and old enemies to work out exactly what happened - and if there’s anything you can do to put it right.

When the previous owner of Locker 1224 mysteriously disappeared, you were left holding the only clues.


If you manage to work up the nerve to ask out your crush, there are 5 dateable characters in Long Story: Two girls, two boys, and one… well, you’ll have to wait and see.

Abby

Marcel

Colin Nora

More Info: http://longstorygame.com 11 THE INTERFACE

Each decision the player makes introduces a new factor in a relationship or gives them a clue to solving the mystery.


BASIC CHOICE MECHANIC


VARIABLES Game is tracking two sets of variables: Clue variables which track how close player is to solving mystery, and relationship variables to show how she is managing relationships with 5 ‘dateable’ non-player-characters.


IN ITS DESIGN LONG STORY ADDRESSES TWO PROBLEMS COMMON TO ‘SEX EDUCATION’ MEDIA

FIRST PROBLEM

“There is a significant discrepancy between what youth are learning about and what they want to know.

Healthy relationships, HIV/AIDS & sexual pleasure are the top three sexual health topics youth want to learn about.


Less than 30% of the diverse youth populations surveyed reported they have learned about healthy relationships and no group included sexual pleasure as one of the top three topics learned.”

Planned Parenthood Toronto Teen Report: pp: 27

SOLUTION

Make a game that helps players learn how to talk about and manage their relationships, feelings, and desires.


Provide guidance in the form of choice matrices and outcomes so players ‘work through’ emotional scenarios and can replay or experiment as much as they want. Example: Abby can be a great friend, maybe even a girlfriend. But first you have to figure out what you want.. And even then… It’s complicated.

SECOND PROBLEM

While focused on prevention and behaviour change sex education media often fail to acknowledge that cultural backgrounds and sexual preference play a big role in the development of intimate practices, and self-care.


In a global village, a game about love, relationships and dating shouldn’t present a single model for a ‘healthy relationship’ because youth bring diverse values and beliefs to the table.

SOLUTION

Make sure characters express different feeling and attitudes towards, intimacy, sex, desire, sexuality and gender.


Storylines can represent the clash of these beliefs without privileging one set over another. Example: Marcel has a really hard time with PDA. He’s originally from Dubai and back home kissing a girl was something you only did in private.

HEALTH COMMUNICATION


Where do teens go for help with sex & relationships?

Source: Planned Parenthood Toronto Teen Report, 2009


HEALTH COMMUNICATION

•  Young people prefer to come to decisions regarding health and relationships with help from friends.

•  Making friends with a fictional character is called a “parasocial relationship”

•  Lessons learned through parasocial friendships can impact real world behavior and beliefs.

•  A player can choose who they ‘like’ and from whom they want to learn in the game. They ‘learn’ by having ‘real’ feelings in a sandbox world.

SOCIAL REACH AS OF JULY 25TH 2013 Established dev blog in February 2013 & mostly ignored it.

In July, we had Renee, our 20-something writing genius. take it over. Set up schedule and strategy for posts and started following our demographic.



WHAT COMES NEXT? SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 2013

•  Test with families and take feedback to team.

•  Funding runs out September 20th – so production has solid deadline.

•  Finalize campaign

•  Continue publicizing project to launch campaign in October 2013

•  1 month campaign to raise 50k for ‘polish’ round of development


How can you help?

Support our campaign Give me your email and I’ll add you to our campaign mailing list. Write us a cheque post-dated for October 2013 : )

Become an ambassador Agree to promote and circulate our campaign to friends and associates. Host a movie night or event at your work.

Become a seed investor Join our board and sign on to become an equity supporter.


More ways to help…

Monetization strategy Review ideas, find the weak points and suggest alternatives.

Financing advice Help us with fundraising or developing a solid plan for generating seed capital.

Networking opportunities Introduce us to the right people, arrange pitches. Introduce us at parties, which you invite us to.


It’s time for a game that deals with the reality of growing up in the 21st century.

For more information and to keep up to date on our progress:

Twitter: @longstorygame

Tumblr: http://longstorygame.com

Email: [email protected]


PARTNERS & SUPPORTERS

•  Hacking Health Toronto

•  Centennial College Applied Research & Innovation Centre

•  Planned Parenthood Toronto


THANK YOU THANK YOU ESPECIALLY TO HACKING HEALTH FOR THEIR INSPIRATION AND ONGOING SUPPORT FOR THIS PROJECT

Date post:	20-Aug-2015
Category:	Health & Medicine
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Long Story Hacking Health Presentation

Health & Medicine