Companies around the world deal with significant security risks every day – corporate espionage, hacking, accidental leaks and even physical intruders. To ensure information security best practices are absorbed and implemented throughout a whole business, big organisations are using different educational solutions, like white papers, presentations and eLearning courses. But with such a dense amount of information to digest, are these tools making the content engaging enough for workers to put those good practices in use?
Engaging in a different way. To solve this lack of engagement and possible risks as a result, the emphasis was put on making each individual in the company -whose name will be maintained private for security reasons- as the main character of their own educational journey. Developing a story and narration with a unique experimental learning experience would help the company to achieve their goals and be more effective in reducing the risk of possible attacks.
After brainstorming different possibilities, the proposal was creating a video game where each worker will be transported into a personal interactive experience; a fun adventure full of challenges but with an educational background behind. Getting users experiencing different types of attacks and learning and how to deal with them in an entertaining way, instead of reading plain text on a screen, will make them less likely to forget them. That’ll help everyone to think about the bigger picture and look at the consequences of their acts in a wider context.
A spies story. The call from a global secret intelligence service. A serious information breach. Important documents at risk of being stolen by the rival organisation. And a trip around the world trying to protect the business. The story, which was set in a noir action thriller-style, takes the player -now an agent- around the globe collecting information and solving challenges with a security-theme background behind.
Created as an ongoing storyline split into four episodes of 20 minutes, each part was built to reach a narrative climax, based on a key topic. At the end of the journey, the character will pass all their tests, defeat the criminals and learn important information about their organisation in the most entertaining and interesting way.
A collaborative and flexible effort. This exercise required a complex management to allow the final product to be done on a tight deadline with the best quality standards. This included a very organised schedule, working simultaneously with copywriters, who were in charge of the script, and video animators and video game developers, who would bring the story to life afterwards. As a designer, my role was analysing the script, research locations and scenes, creating all the illustrations, backgrounds and other assets required by the developers and produce the internal campaign to support the video game.
But this was more of a collaborative effort, in which each individual member of the team was bringing their expertise in a specific field to get the best product possible. During different brainstorms, the main idea of a spy game was settled, followed by the old-fashioned noir film look and feel and finalising with specific details, as possible challenges for the player, difficulty, transitions, music, etc. A high level of flexibility was required as, while creating one of the stages of the game, the whole team needed to discuss the next level.
