‘GET H²O’ is a ’serious’ mobile game about Peace Building

A strategic game with an educational purpose. It has been developed with and for Kenyan youth, but is equally applicable to young people in many low income contexts.
The aim of the game is to enhance understanding of the causes, which underlie most conflicts, such as scarcity of resources, corruption and poverty. Players see how their actions in the game can either lead to conflict escalation or community well-being. So doing the player learns to understand the dynamics of conflict, the role that the individual can play for positive change all while being engaged in a fun mobile game.

Solution Description
‘GET H²O’ deals with one of the dominating challenges and as such sources of crime within the slums of Nairobi - chronic water shortages. So doing the game encapsulates both the larger issues and the daily obstacles in the lives of the players. In a playful manner, the game fosters the sensitization of the players for the peaceful handling of community problems and flags options and alternatives for common action and possible long-term results. As such, the game provides an engaging, self-reinforcing context in which to motivate and educate the players. Consequently, it fosters a non-violent lifestyle amongst young people.

Innovation meets reality
The player gets sensitized to the inter-connectedness of certain actions and challenges within their own environment. In a playful way he/she learns how certain actions can have a sustainable effect on peace within their surroundings. As such the game aims at creating awareness and hence fosters a behavior change mechanism. The game teaches peaceful ways of addressing daily challenges and solving problems.

Several levels, learning theory
The game can be played in several levels and the game play is designed in a self-explanatory way, accompanied by explanatory pop-ups throughout the game. The activities happening in the game / chosen by the player are visualized through animation on the screen. A ‘community karma bar’ provides the player with constant information and feels on how certain actions influence the community situation and security.
The game provides a new way of interacting with young people in Kenya on this crucial topic, especially considering the Post election violence of early 2008.
Based on a behavior change model the game creates awareness as to the precondition of reflection on certain situations and behavioral patterns. The game dynamics are designed in a way which emphasizes and shows solutions to those daily challenges and conflicts in the daily lives of our target group and therefore entails a profound potential to result in informed finding of solutions to certain conflict sources and the informed and reflective dealing with daily struggles. On the long-term and up scaled this dynamics will trigger an ongoing and spreading debate and reflection which can lead to a more peaceful behavior / peer figures across the country which will carry on their experience and learned message.

Kenyan youth – the mobile generation
Mobile phones are incredibly popular throughout Kenya. Young people do not only use the devices for their phone calls and text messages but also as a multi-media and entertainment platform and the market is steadily growing. Mobile games are of high popularity among the targeted age group. First evaluation among young people from the biggest slums of Nairobi confirmed the popularity of playing and exchanging games. More than 50% of Kenyans enter the Internet via mobile phone instead of Personal Computers.

Testing
Our test rounds have shown that our target group, Kenyan youth is technically skilled. Kenyan youth is highly mobile phone savvy and used to the dynamics of mobile games. Our game comes along with in-game instructions and can be played in several levels. The test rounds have shown that people were able to quickly adapt the game play. Due to the real life scenario the happenings and dynamics in the game are very realistic and therefore easily applicable for Kenyan youth.

Technical specification
The game is programmed in order to run on simple color screen phones which support java, based on a research of most popular upcoming mobile phones in Kenya. It is written in J2ME, as such running on all java supported phones. The game is of small data size and easily accessible and downloadable also with low bandwidth. It has fun pixel animations.
The game can be downloaded via the Internet, either directly via the phone or via a computer and transferred via Bluetooth.

Sustainability Plan / Testing process
Butterfly Works co-creates!
The first version of the game is developed and programmed for a total amount of 14.000 Euro.
These costs do not include the promotion and spreading of the game. To spread the game we have multiple strategies and will need some extra funds to make this happen. such as building and hosting platform to crowd source new version and language translation, plus on the ground promotion in Kenya.

Local partners
Through co-development of the entire project cycle we create context-relevant tools and strategies in order to trigger awareness creation and build capacities for people to become change agents of their concerns.
We developed the game such as all our products together with members of our target group. Throughout the game development process we run several workshop rounds with target group members in Nairobi, Kenya. Together with young people of the biggest slums in Nairobi we brainstormed, discussed, co-created and gradually brought the game to the current design and dynamics.
For the facilitation of these processes we closely collaborate with our partner MamaBits , a consultancy for Youth Communication based in Nairobi and founded by NairoBits and Butterfly Works. http://www.mamabits.com

Scaling up
Alongside with the mobile game, a ‘GET H²O’ board game is going to be published soon. Throughout the following month we are going to develop a joomla environment including the Ushahidi mapping tool in order to monitor the spreading of the game and connecting people to exchange their experiences and lessons learned. (a comparable environment can be viewed here: www.buildingbridges.co.ke)
After the initial launch in Kenya we are aiming at a global scaling process supported via the website. We will provide the files as open source data set and will add a section on the website in order to find people who wish to translate the game into other languages. People will be able to connect with us and become ‘GET H²O’ ambassadors’, spreading the game and the message. The official launch will take place in August this year. By this time the website including the interactive mapping tool as well as a cross-media strategy will be fully developed.

Final steps
The programming process of the game files is in the final phase. Once the 1.0 version of the game is finalized we will make all files available via the current ‘GET H²O’ online platform, http://geth2ogame.com.
The game can be downloaded for free. Furthermore, we are currently looking into opportunities to pre-install the game on Kenyan phones by cooperating with Kenyan providers and mobile phone manufacturers.

Crowd sourcing new languages versions
All the Butterfly Works programs and concepts aim at self-sustainablilty and scaling up over time. With the open source code as well as the platform we are going to build we expect the game to spread among Kenyan, Tanzanian, Ugandan and international youth.
Once we will provide the final game files, people will have the opportunity to give feedback and report potential bugs via and later via the globally connecting mapping tool and its interaction features. In case of any further adjustments of the game in the future, we will cooperate with programmers in Kenya. Therefore, we have already identified young J2ME programmers throughout the progress and have involved them in the testing rounds at NairoBits.

Spreading the game
Due to the option to spread the game via bluetooth as well as to download the files directly from the internet and receiving them directly to your mobile phone via our geth2o mobile website, alongside the on the ground campaign in Kenya, the incorporation of the game within the Sambaza Peace program also spreading in Kenya and our linkages with phone manufacturers we expect to spread the game to large numbers of young people, albeit with the necessary technical challenges which we will tackle as they come up.

Current website
Please see the current website on the game for more info and pictures www.geth2ogame.com
On March the 12th, 2010, some ‘GET H²O’ team members held a demonstration of the game at an event in Nairobi University and won a prize as the most interesting social concept.
We hope you find the concept as exciting and full of potential as we do. If we win such a prize as the Betavine Challenge it will enable us to take the game to the world!

Thanks
Butterfly Works, MamaBits, NairoBits