RePlay: Finding Zoe
Game URL: www.metrac.org/replay/en/index.html

Developer: METRAC in partnership with Susana Ruiz, Huy Trong, Ashley York

Non-Profit: The Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC) has been funded to create the game, and has done research/focus grou

Release Date: May 31, 2007

Project Lead: Andrea Gunraj, Outreach Manager, METRAC

Funding Sources: The Government of Ontario, Ontario Women's Directorate

Sponsors/In-kind donations: METRAC has provided in-kind support for many of the project development and game development costs

Budget:
Overall: 30,000 (for game alone)
Secured: 25,000 (the rest is being delivered in-kind)

Brief Description
The RePlay video game is geared towards promoting healthy, equal relationships between youth aged 8 to 14 years old. It challenges mainstream gender stereotypes that children learn from a young age, and that often lead to the social proliferation of violence against women and girls.

Full Description
RePlay is a Flash-based online game that engages players in a fun gaming experience to promote attitudes and skills girls and boys need to create healthy, equal interpersonal relationships. Its narrative and gameplay fosters learning about healthy relationships and communication, diversity, and prevention of sexism and violence against girls and women. The overarching narrative tells the story of two friends searching for their good friend Zoe. They have just heard sexist, stereotyping rumors about Zoe that lead them to conclude that she is in need of help. The rumors start one day after school when a group of kids describe how Zoe has gone to �third base� with her boyfriend Jake. The rumors are insensitive and as their maliciousness grows, the friends� sense of urgency escalates. They come to realize that Zoe is caught up in an abusive relationship. As the story unfolds, the two friends learn of some of the ways Jake has taken control over Zoe�s life. The fact that locating her has become such a challenge is indicative of how Jake has isolated Zoe and pressured her in ways that do not ring true or safe to her two friends. On their search, the two friends navigate their neighborhood and social networks, and they are challenged with confrontations (mini-games) that encourage them to work together and be respectful, confident communicators. Doing well in these mini-games helps to strengthen the avatars� resiliency and better equip them to support Zoe once they manage to find her.

Target Audience: Children and youth, aged 8 to 14

Social Issues Addressed: public health, Violence against girls and women,

Purpose:
Global statistics demonstrate that violence against women and girls is a pervasive problem, and that young women are most at risk of experiencing sexual assault, physical abuse, harassment, and stalking. Research also shows that children learn rigid notions of what it means to be a �real man� and �real woman� at an early age � the very stereotypes that lead to epidemic levels of violence against women and girls. Youth need tools to identify and challenge unhealthy relationships, gender stereotypes, and violence against women and girls. The RePlay Project seeks to do so through the medium of the video game - the story is designed to illustrate a realistic narrative of a young woman an in an unhealthy relationship. It allows the player to understand the complexities of such a relationship from the perspective of the person facing abuse (Zoe). The player is put into a position where they navigate the game through two avatars that have very different personalities (one is reserved and thoughtful, the other is more outspoken). Although they are so different, they have to use their strengths and balance their weaknesses to deal with confrontations and challenge sexist, gender stereotyping attitudes of others along the way. These challenges take the form of �grabbing� healthy words that are floating away from them to form effective sentences, all the while managing their anger, fear, and will to lash out in abusive ways. If they are successful in those challenges, avatars win over the non-player avatars, who join them in their search for Zoe. During the search, players increase their chances of finding Zoe by clicking on links within the neighbourhood to a variety of real-life violence prevention websites and written resources for youth. Players can sign on to a real online campaign addressing global violence against women and girls at the end of playing the game. RePlay is designed to help players envision different ways to challenge sexism and violence against girls and women by illustrating examples of it and asking the player to engage directly in the word challenges. It also illustrates how people will different personalities can challenge violence; words can diffuse potentially violent situations; that community networks and connections are important in addressing gender based violence; and that youth action on the issue is needed and possible. It seeks to raise awareness of the often-silenced issue of violence against women and girls to inspire youth to challenge acceptance of violence and unhealthy relationships in their own lives.

Metrics:
How? RePlay has an important survey feature built into the game's structure. As players enter the game, they are asked a series of short, fun multiple choice questions that give METRAC an idea of why they are playing and what their existing attitudes are. At the end of the game, players are asked follow up questions that find out if they would play the game again, what attitudinal change occurred, and what they learned from the game. Players can access the answers of other players by way of animation of youth who get up and cheer according to how many players picked a particular answer for each question.

What outcomes have been measured? The game has not yet been released to the public, and the bulk of RePlay's impact will be realized at that point. However, many community partners have been influenced by the process of creating RePlay, including 250 diverse children and youth across Ontario who have participate in focus groups and surveys, educators, parents, community organizations, and government supporters. We are confident in the ability of the game to connect to divers youth players because the development of the game has been grounded in their ideas, experiences, and game playing preferences.


Press Coverage:
A media launch is being planned in conjunction with our funder (to be held late May or early June 2007). However, we did a media launch of the game when it was started in September 2005, and many local Toronto media sources (newspapers and news shows) attended. RePlay has recently been selected as a finalist for the Ashoka global Changemakers contest dealing with domestic abuse issues.

Press Release URL: http://www.metrac.org/programs/info/replay.press.release.05.pdf


Public Contact Information
Name: METRAC
Email: outreach@metrac.org

Press Contact Name: Andrea Gunraj
Press Contact Email: outreach@metrac.org

Game Tags:

Where you can play this game: It will be posted on www.metrac.org by the end of May 2007.