Infection four: Designing games with youth for youth

Background: Urban youth of color face tremendous disparities in sexual and reproductive health as evidenced by high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Game Changer Chicago (GCC) is an innovative, interdisciplinary, initiative at the University of Chicago in which we examine serious games, storytelling, and digital media to influence sexual and reproductive health outcomes among urban youth of color. Methods: A hallmark of the GCC program is the “vertical design studio” in which youth, students, and GCC faculty and staff work intensively and collaboratively to design games for their peers. In Summer 2012, four high school-aged youth from Chicago's South Side, one undergraduate and five graduate students, collaborated with GCC in a one-week game design workshop. We began with the loosely framed objective of creating a card game about sexual and reproductive health. Using rapid low-fidelity prototyping, iterative design, and agile development, we designed a four-person, collaborative card game: the Infection Four (I4). I4 takes you into the world of four heroes. Players learn about STIs, prevention, treatment, and use role play to face “boss level” challenges in which qualities such as humor, resilience, and compassion are used to combat monsters such as stigma, shame, and denial. Conclusions: Games, whether analog or digital, offer players interactive contexts for thinking through and experimenting with complex problems in a hands-on fashion. I4 is designed by youth for youth to promote knowledge and behaviors to address the physical, social, and emotional aspects of STIs.