BROKE: The Game
Completed: 2019
Download here:
tinyurl.com/broke-ios
tinyurl.com/broke-android
Genre: Text-based story game
Platform(s): iOS, Android
Description: Step into the shoes of a person living on poverty. Choose one of the characters, who all experience poverty in very different ways, and take over their phone. People from your characters life will send you texts, emails, etc. that present you with situations, which you must respond to in ways that you think will benefit your financial capital as well as your relationships. If you do well enough, you'll help your character accomplish a goal they have.
The game is targeted at people who have to interact with those who experience poverty for work (teachers, police, social workers, etc.) so they can empathize with those who experience poverty better.
Controls:
- Same as the equivalent to any app in the game in the real world
- Tap on dialogue options you want to choose
Unusual elements:
- All situations in the game are based on true stories
- A simulation of poverty that focuses on intimate interactions with the people whose decisions you are affecting
- Gender and race neutrality
Awards:
- Bronze Award for Best Student Game at the Serious Games Conference 2019
- Selected for presentation at CHI PLAY 2019
My roles:
- Programmer of the texting app
- Programming the function that makes text get cut off with a "..." at the end, which is used in the headlines of notifications
- Designing the CircleUp app as an indicator of one's relationships
- Contributing the writing to make the homeless character's work friend sound believably lower class in the way they speak
- Looking over the dialogue to make it seem believable that a male would say any given line said by a character that could be male
- Creation of the documentary that accompanies the game
- Writing the weekly development blog posts