The aim of the project is to empower children in the creation of their own positive digital futures. We will centre 7 and 8-year-old children within the game development process (via an adapted version of the ‘gamejam’ format), providing a scaffold for children to design and create games about wellbeing, kindness, and connection in online digital spaces.

‘Gamejams’ refer to rapid development of a video game, similar to a sports clinic. Children will be supported via co-design with game developers, producing polished and playable games for free online distribution to children around the world. Specifically, we are interested in how children imagine, design, and describe positive digital play experiences, as well as how gamejams can be used to empower young children as co-designers of games.

Project Aims:

• How children imagine, describe, and design positive digital play experiences
• How gamejams can be used to empower young children as co-designers of games

Project Design:

There will be three stages of research.

• Stage 1 involves visiting the QUT Children’s Technology Centre (Kelvin Grove, Brisbane) on the afternoons of July 8, 9, and 10, in which your child will participate in approximately three- to four-hour game development workshops.
  • This will be a collaborative event, in which four teams of five children work together to design a video game prototype about wellbeing, kindness, and connection in digital spaces.
  • Each team will be guided by a professional game developer and a member of the research team.
• Stage 2 involves three online (Zoom) co-design meetings (30 – 60 minutes), once a month, with an expert game developer. These developers will refine the children’s game prototypes to a polished state.
• Stage 3 involves a final online (Zoom) interview, each running 10 – 30 minutes. Both children and parents/guardians will be asked to separately reflect on their experiences during Stages 1 and 2.

Call for participants:

We are seeking children:

• Aged 7 to 8 years of age,
• Who have some experience playing videogames

As well as a parent or guardian of that child for participation in Stage 3.