Moving On
Gamers of Action, USA
Time to Explain!
falafelovore, France
Open Worlds Play
Sunny Chen, USA
New Sun
Colmena Games, Colombia
MushWhom?
Collin Lang, Knitwit Studios, USA
Figure it Sprout
Quang Nguyen, David Li, Gaby Sanchez, Kitty Huang
One New Message
Eloise Best, England
UnEarth
Robin Ghosh, Canada
Culture Overlord
Lucas Vially, France
Lamplight Hollow
Luciano Sgarbi, UK
2020 #JungleJam Winner!
Rispek Danis
World Vision Vanuatu & Jennifer Ann's Group
ADRIFT
Quinn Crossley and Andrew Connell, USA
Stuck in a Dark Place
Another Kind, Belgium
HONEYMOON
Sandra Lara Castillo, England
Grace's Diary
GPTouch, Thailand
A resurrected Flash classic (2010)
Knowledge Can Be Your Bulletproof Vest
Another Kind, Belgium
Teen Dating Violence Classic (2010)
Untitled Bird Game
Jared Sain, USA
Teen Dating Violence Classic (2009)
Escape Your Boyfriend's Room
Goyco Games, USA
Teen Dating Violence Classic (2008)
Teen Dating Violence and video games
Teen dating violence is the physical, sexual, or psychological/emotional violence in a dating relationship. Although this problem is called "teen dating violence" our focus is not just on teenagers but also on tweens (11 and 12 year olds) as well as young adults in their early twenties (20 - 22). This form of relationship violence is distinguished from people who are married or generally have greater experience in dating relationships. This disinction is important because people with relatively little dating experience will have greater difficulty knowing if some aspects of a relationship are "normal" or not.
Although physical or sexual abuse in a dating relationship is fairly easy to define and identify, other forms of abuse like emotional or psychological abuse are not as easy to explain because they depend a great deal on context. This nuanced aspect of dating abuse is just one reason why it can be challenging to teach young people about what is - and what isn't - healthy or acceptable behavior in a relationship. The importance of nuance and context highlights the value of using an interactive medium, like digital games, for prevention.
The majority of the video games on JAGga.me focus on teen dating violence and are from the Gaming Against Violence program presented by Jennifer Ann's Group, the sponsor of JAGga.me. Gaming Against Violence produces an annual global game design competition, the Life.Love. Game Design Challenge, which has been rewarding video game developers for producing video games about teen dating violence since 2008.
Changing attitudes about teen dating violence and increasing awareness is critical to preventing future abuse.
Teen dating violence has been shown to be linked to a number of unhealthy behaviors including:
Jennifer Ann's Group produces video games as an effective tool to prevent dating violence through awareness, education, and advocacy through its Gaming Against Violence program. To learn more about the history of Jennifer Ann's Group's and its other programs designed to prevent teen dating violence visit JenniferAnn.org.
Research on the Prevention of Teen Dating Violence through Video Games
Video games have been shown to be effective in changing attitudes about abusive behavior, increasing knowledge of dating violence, and increasing awareness of teen dating violence. "'It's like you're actually playing as yourself': Development and Preliminary evaluation of 'Green Acres High', a serious game-based primary intervention to combat adolescent dating violence" from CAVA shares their success in using a video game to change attitudes about abusive behavior in the UK, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium.
You can read more about Jennifer Ann's Group use of video games to prevent dating violence in the journal article written by Jennifer Ann's Group Executive Director "Gaming Against Violence: A Grassroots Approach to Teen Dating Violence" (subscription) in the August 2014 issue of Games for Health Journal.
Jennifer Ann's Group has also conducted its own research (2016) into the effectiveness of their games. Their findings show that the majority of participants showed a change in attitude about negative relationship beliefs in only 20 - 45 minutes. This research, 'Gaming Against Violence: An Exploratory Evaluation through Mechanical Turk of the Efficacy of Persuasive Digital Games in Improving Unhealthy Relationship Attitudes' was presented at Games and Learning Alliance (GALA) 2017 in Lisbon, Portugal. Please sign up to be notified of this and other items of interest regarding the efforts of Jennifer Ann's Group.
Jennifer Ann's Group is a nonprofit public charity working to prevent teen dating violence through awareness, education, and advocacy. The Atlanta-based organization was created in 2006 in memory of Jennifer Ann Crecente, a high school senior who was killed by her ex-boyfriend.
Since 2008 Jennifer Ann's Group has run an annual competition, the Life.Love. Game Design Challenge, to challenge and reward video game developers for producing video games about teen dating violence.
To learn more about Jennifer Ann's Group's use of video games to prevent violence visit JenniferAnn.org.
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