Game Jam Challenge

Challenge Leads: Luke Pacholski (@flukeout), Chad Sansing (@chadsansing)

Description

How can we use the web to teach and learn about online safety in fun, low-risk ways?

That’s the question behind this Game Jam Challenge. Your job is to prototype a web-native game or series of micro-games that let players:

• Have fun in a safe, inviting, and empowering environment tackling conceptual and practical privacy and security problems in low-risk ways.
• Learn strong online safety habits related to privacy and security.
• Learn about privacy and security threats facing them online.
• Use transferrable mechanics that help them solve in-game challenges with habits and skills they can use elsewhere on the Internet.
• Connect privacy and security to other Internet health issues like digital inclusion.

Here are some ideas to get you started. For example, players could:

• Solve an increasingly complex series of color-based puzzles to decrypt coded messages that advance the story or provide tips for healthy online habits.
• Defeat or avoid a variety of privacy-invading enemies (or mobs) that represent the different threats they face to their own privacy and security on the web.
• Build a healthy Internet as if they were playing a city-builder or tower-defense game with privacy and security safeguards (including decentralization) ensuring the safety of the network they build.

The big idea is to invent and prototype a web-native game that helps players use what they learn about privacy and security to protect themselves on the web.

Your prototype can be online or made of paper. Regardless, it should demonstrate how you’re teaching online safety and related Internet health issues like digital inclusion.

Share your project in the Game Jam folder of our Mozilla Privacy Arcade repo and keep us up-to-date on your work by tweeting at @MozLearn with the hashtag #mozsprint. More about repos below.

What Kinds of Skills Do I Need? What Kinds of Things Can I Make?

There are lots of ways to contribute to this project that use different skills and talents. For example:

• Someone who advocates for online safety or has experienced a breach of privacy or security might share part of a real-life story as the inspiration for a game.
• Someone who loves to tell stories might share ideas for different games.
• Someone who loves to draw might share concept art, designs, or graphics for a game.
• Someone who loves music might compose or find openly licensed background music and sound effects for a game.
• Someone who loves all kinds of games might invent a tabletop game or card game for others to adapt for the web.
• Someone who loves to code might prototype a game from another contributor's artwork or story ideas.

All of our contributors and their work deserve care and thanks.

If you're unsure of what to contribute or how to contribute a piece of work, never hesitate to ask a project lead for help. We are here to support you and will be answering questions throughout the sprint.

Are You New to Game Design?

Whether you're a veteran gamer, and experienced designer, or someone new to gaming or the Global Sprint, we want to make sure you feel welcome to contribute to the project of your choice.

These resources might be helpful to you if you’re wondering how to begin with game design.

Game Design Resources

• What Makes a Good Computer Game?
• Game Design Fundamentals - Game Paper Prototyping
• Runsii - Games Paper Prototype
• Scratch Video Tutorials
• A Beginner’s Guide to making Your First Video Game
• Making Your First Game: Basics - How To Start Your Game Development - Extra Credits

Can I Get To Work Before the Sprint?

Of course. It's fine to begin the sprint with work already in-hand. You should feel free to set up for the sprint however you'd like. You might:

• Make some designs, puzzle, or story ideas for feedback during the sprint.
• Put together a team to begin work now and continue it after the sprint. You can do this online through your network or in our project's issue tracker. You can also recruit a team to work face-to-face in your community.
• Reserve space now to host a "site" or meet-up during the sprint (see more details about hosting a site below).

Just keep in mind that we're asking you to license the work openly so our everyone can use, adapt, and build upon your contributions (see more about licensing below).

How To Share Your Work

We’ve set up a repo for the projects you make in response to these challenges. You can check out what the greater Global Sprint community is up to on the 2017 Global Sprint landing page.

A repo is a repository - or collection of files - that belong together on GitHub. All the files contributed by everyone working on your project will eventually wind up in 1 repo so you can see each other's work, give feedback, and adapt it for yourself or your own communities.

If you are new to GitHub, it is totally fine to work on another platform, like in a Google Document, and to copy and paste your text into an issue or to share a link to your work through an issue. A project or challenge lead will put it into the master "repo" (repository), or collection of work, for you.

Please note that we’re asking all contributors to apply a Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 license to whatever non-code contributions they make during the sprint. We’re asking contributors to license code contributions with the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

However you decide to work or whatever you make, there are lots of ways to contribute:

• Spreading word about the Global Sprint beforehand through your professional and interest-based networks.
• Organizing a team ahead of the sprint and helping it prepare.
• Hosting a site, or meet-up, during the sprint for people in your community so they can work together in person.
• Proposing helpful changes to other contributor's content with "pull requests," or requests to pull new content into older files to update them.
• Crafting new content for the project and contributing it through pull request, issue, or link.
• Sharing resources by filing an issue.
• Sharing feedback by filing an issue.
• GitHub vets, fork the repo and submit pull requests.

There is no wrong way to contribute, and project and challenge leads are here to answer your questions help you get your work into the repo. You should feel free and empowered to share your work before, during, and after the sprint on social media (like through blogs, Facebook, and Twitter), as well.

Thank you for your contributions to the challenges in our Mozilla Privacy Arcade project.

How To File an Issue on GitHub

GitHub can be challenging for new users. If you experience difficulty with it, you are not alone. We want to help you overcome those challenges or find a way to contribute that works for you.

For this project in the Global Sprint, we can use a feature called the "Issue Tracker" in GitHub to communicate with one another. It's kind of like a shared message board combined with a to-do list. To address an issue to a specific person, you add their name to the issue the same way you would to a tweet, like this for example: @chadsansing would address your message to Chad, one of our project leads.

If the Issue Tracker is too difficult to use, contact a project lead. We will work with you and help you find a way to contribute no matter what.

Here are some steps you can take to get started on GitHub if you'd like to try it.

1. First, create an account on GitHub.

2. Then visit our repo or the folder for the challenge you'd like to work on during the sprint.

3. Next, click on the "Issues" tab near the top of the page.

4. Finally, click on the green "New Issue" button to the left of the page. You can then title your issue and add content. Specificity helps.

Before you submit your issue, label it. You can choose one from the "Labels" dropdown menu to the right of your issue. Add the light-green #mozsprint label to each issue to file and then pick the label that goes with the challenge you're working on during the sprint. This helps people find the people and issues associated with the challenge to which they're contributing.

We have challenge labels for:

• game-jam-challenge (purple).

We also have labels for site-related news, as well as for finding help and answering questions:

• site-related is light purple.
• help-wanted is red.
• questions are blue.

After you apply all your labels, your issue should have a #mozsprint label, your challenge label, and possibly a site-related, help-wanted, or question label.

If you'd like to learn even more about GitHub, check out the GitHub for Collaboration section of Mozilla's Open Leadership Training Series.

How To Host a Site

If you organize a team for the Global Sprint or would like to run a "site" - like a meet-up at a community center or in a learning space or makerspace - visit this page to learn how to register your event.

Site leaders receive support from project and challenge leads to help people learn and work together face-to-face. They commit to being on-site from 9AM to 5 PM local time each day so they can:

• Welcome people who come to work in-person.
• Ensure that your site is a safe and friendly working environment for all.
• Help to promote the Global Sprint to your communities and encourage local participation.
• Serve as a point of contact for communicating (updates, progress) with the rest of the Sprint during the event.
• Help to collect data on activities on the Site (number of participants and contributions).

If you would like to host and register a site, let a project lead know how to help. We will make sure you feel well-prepared to host a site.

When To Sprint

This year’s Global Sprint runs for 48 hours from June 1st, 2017, to June 2nd, 2017. Sprint hours are 9 AM to 5 PM in your local timezone. You can sprint for a few hours, for a day, or for both days. You can contribute to 1 project or several. There is no wrong way to participate in the sprint.

How To Follow the Sprint Online

We will be curating and sharing your work throughout the sprint, so keep in touch and let us know how things are going at @MozLearn on Twitter using the hashtag #mozsprint.

You can also see "Featured Projects" on Mozilla's Network Pulse, our resource for sharing exciting events and resources with our community.

After the Sprint

We’d love to keep up with you after the Global Sprint, as well, to follow the development of your projects. We can also help you write a session proposal for this year’s MozFest.

Questions? File an issue and cc @chadsansing or email Chad.

Let’s go play.