DOJO

Emotional Development/Management
Funded by the MAC Foundation
Platform: Unity Engine

 Download DOJO (PC) Purchase an iOM device

Note that the full DOJO experience requires an iOM device available from Wild Divine. While the game is playable without the iOM, you will experience none of the bio-feedback gameplay mechanics.

 

This project is in co-development with Chizuru Games for the MAC Foundation and the University of California, San Francisco. The game targets urban high school students, drop-outs, and youth within or coming out of the juvenile justice system. The project focuses on adolescents who struggle to regulate their emotions. The game is designed for young people who may be inclined to impulsively respond to stressful situations.


Main Dojo Masters Room: Nov 2010

The ultimate goal of this game is for players to learn to control their physiological reactions. Game interactions and challenges provide players practice and support for regulating their emotional reactions. By controlling these reactions, players experience success in the game, and become better prepared for success in future real-life challenges.

PROJECT GOALS:

  • Provide strategies and exercises that reinforce emotion-coping mechanisms.
  • Create an experiential association between a players’ feelings, changes in their bodies, and their behavior.
  • Teach skills that identify feelings and deal with strong emotions.
  • Integrate biofeedback hardware that monitors changes in players’ physiological state.
  • Build three emotional challenges that address fear, frustration, and anger.


Breathing Training Room: Screenshot Nov 2010

NARRATIVE:

The game takes place in a secret temple below a downtown subway system. The player experiences the game in the role of a young person who is going through a hard time and is reflecting on recent life trials and difficulties.

In the hidden temple, the player encounters several DOJO MASTERS who guide him or her through various training exercises and game challenges. The style fuses the ancient japanese dojo, egyptian mythology, and urban hip-hop culture to create a fun, stylish, and culturally relevant experience for the player.

EMOTIONAL FEEDBACK MONITORING AND CONTROL:

Chizuru Games and GameDesk are partnering with Wild Divine to integrate their IOM device and pulse feedback system into the game. The device measures both GSR (Skin Conductance) and heart rate with clinical-grade accuracy. The device is about the size of an iPod, and the USB cord plugs directly into the computer.  Three sensors fasten securely and comfortably to the fingers. The middle sensor measures heart rate, while the other two are used to determine skin conductance.  Chizuru Games designed and developed a data importer and interpretive algorithm layer for the device that reads and translates the data for interactive and graphical use to support DOJO gameplay.


Fear Dojo Screen Capture: NOV 2010


GameDesk is a 501(c)3 nonprofit research, development, and outreach organization that seeks to rethink learning through play, making, and interaction.

We look to transform the learning experience, help close the achievement gap, and deeply engage students in learning core curriculum.

The organization (originally developed out of research and support at the University of Southern California's IMSC) has now been in development, practice, and/or evaluation for over four years in various schools, learning centers, and homes nationally.