un-Tilted!
A two-player tower defense game where the cooperation needed to avoid collective defeat is put at risk by your own desire to win!
The challenge of balancing cooperation with self-interest, creates HOT moments and true tests of self-control.
Coaches use cognitive behavioral strategies to guide players through an E-sports themed experience. Players spar with a teammate in training sessions using un-Tilted! then play in a competitive e-sports tournament with spectators and prizes, recalling self-control skills learned playing un-Tilted!
As the Game Designer on this project, I was tasked with transforming aggression prevention techniques into actionable game design strategies, creating mechanics that would support young boys (ages 9-12) in learning self-regulation skills.
A core objective was to design gameplay that safely and intentionally triggered moments of aggression in players, then provide opportunities for them to regulate that aggression, recording their responses for analysis. The game was required to be mobile, offline-capable, and aligned with broader research goals as part of the Risk Resilience Research Lab at UC Berkeley’s aggression regulation intervention study.
©2024 UC Berkeley | Risk Resilience Research Lab
