Project Ian

Game description

Project Ian is a dating simulator. The main character in the game is Iris, a 15 year old girl that really likes a boy in her class called Ian. The game revolves around Iris' daily life, and a big feature returning is Iris’ diary. In this she writes a lot about how she actually feels, even if it does not match with possible actions she’s done the past day. This is where the main feedback to the user occurs: the user will realize that maybe things happened that Iris didn’t actually want or realize that maybe she went slightly over the line.

In the game the user gets to decide what Iris’ next reactions are. This mainly happens at school, other places are the pool and at the end her home as well. The reactions mainly revolve around advances from boys towards Iris and Iris trying to get a better relationship with Ian. Some characters that walk around can be a bit pushy and go over Iris boundaries, where it is up to the user to decide whether or not to react negative to this. This happens by the user clicking a negative, neutral or positive response. This then decides how the rest of the game will progress and what characters will leave her alone and which won’t.

The end game happens at Iris’ home. She took a boy home but he is showing some bad behavior by crossing her boundaries. It is up to Iris then to ideally push him away if he is forcing her to do things she doesn’t want. Yet the message of the game is that you are allowed to say yes and no, as long as you do what you want and don’t let yourself get forced into anything and be respectful of other’s boundaries too.

The goal of the game

The goal of the game is to make children with a mild mental handicap aware about limits of both themselves and others in a sexual context. We wanted to achieve this in a playful but challenging way. The main message of the game is that limits of yourself and others should be respected. Saying ‘no’ is alright, even though it can be difficult. You should not let yourself get forced to do anything you don’t want. Yet if you do want it, then saying yes is fine. That is why both options can be used in the game, reacting positive and negative to advances of others. Just so long as it is what the player wants. We were careful and didn’t put a negative atmosphere around sex, as the goal of the game is not to scare the player but simply make them aware of their own choices.