Game User Experience and Interface Development

What the Hack

What the Hack is an educational game developed for a large bank to help teach employees the skills needed to prevent hackers and phishers. The employers envisioned using this game instead of a mandatory course on hacking. The entertainment aspect of it is thought to make the information retention more effective. I spent summer 2017 at Cornell assisting a professor designing and developing the game under a grant from the Bank. My jobs involved character, background, and interface design as well as planning narrative and user interactions.

Tech Used; Unity2D, C#, Adobe Suite

The start of the game brings you to a cut scene where you are receiving an offer letter to work at undisclosed bank (deemed BigRedBank for privacy purposes)

The introduction of the game then leads you to the bank where your game will be taking place.

I created these characters using vectors in Photoshop, after sketching using ProCreate.

This is the main screen for most of the game. The game involves you researching certain hacking/phishing prevention methods and choosing to reject or accept different types of emails and messages in a short amount of time. You must respond to enough of them to keep the boss happy, while rejecting scams and hackers. 

Completing your tasks quickly enough puts you on the leaderboard. The employees using the game will be able to compete as well. 

After conducting a few focus groups, we attempted to create a game that was not too difficult, but not so easy that the employees weren't learning anything. At first, the game was too difficult, so we had to adjust game play to suit the users.

This leads to an angry boss and employees!