Culture Overlord is a media literacy video game developed by Lucas Vially presented by the Gaming Against Violence program and produced by the nonprofit organization Jennifer Ann's Group. It was a 2022 Games for Change Awards "Best Learning Game" nominee, a 2021 James Paul Gee Learning Games Award finalist, and is the winning game of the 2020 Life.Love. Game Design Challenge. Culture Overlord was created for the Gaming Against Violence program which focuses on the use of games for violence prevention. Published by Life Love Publishing.
This prosocial video game explores media and cultural impacts on the attitudes and beliefs that young people have regarding healthy dating relationships. For information and resources about Media Literacy and Healthy Dating Relationships please see below.
Artist Statement
"Making a game is quite a challenge. Making a game to adequately teach something is even more difficult. The topic of culture and its influence on our daily lives is complex and important. I hope my game manages to effectively introduce players to the subject."
- Lucas Vially, Creator of Culture Overlord
Latest: Critical Thinking Game Design Challenge
The theme for the 16th Annual Life.Love. Game Design Challenge is critical thinking. Game pitches must be submitted by March 19th for the Critical Thinking Game Design Challenge. Visit CriticalThinker.games for more details and to submit a game pitch idea.
Latest: Resilience Games
The theme for the 15th Annual Life.Love. Game Design Challenge was resilience. Two of the winning resilience games are now available to play in your browser: One New Message and Unearth.
Culture Overlord
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An important goal of Culture Overlord is to encourage players, especially young people, to consider the impact of movies, books, songs, games, websites, and more. More specifically, what attitudes and beliefs are they acquiring from popular media? In their Parent's Guide to Media Literacy The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) asks parents "where do children get their beliefs?" and "what messages are they receiving?"[1]
Similarly the Center for Media Literacy (CML) conducts research to study how media impacts students in the areas of "violence, nutrition, body image, and sexuality."[2] Media Smarts in Canada encourages educators to engage students about media in the classroom in order to "become active, enaged media consumers" and that the need for this media literacy education "needs to start at the very early stages of learning."[3]
According to common sense media [4], encouraging early education in media literacy is intended to help young people:
- learn to think critically
- become a smart consumer of products and information
- recognize point of view
- create media responsibly
- identify the role of media in our culture
- understand the author's goal
Unfortunately media literacy is not taught in classrooms very often. According to Media Literacy now, fewer than one-third of states include media literacy in their education standards.[6] Further, the media literacy curricula include for-profit corporations that don't sufficiently consider the roles played by "power dynamics, profit motives, or their own internal beliefs and biases."[7]
Select Media Literacy Resources
Healthy Dating Relationships
The primary goal of Culture Overlord is to prevent abusive dating relationships, in particular, teen dating violence. The aim is to do this through the promotion of healthy dating relationship ideals and attitudes for adolescents. Media literacy is important to achieve this goal because young people's attitudes and beliefs regarding healthy relationships and gender norms are heavily informed by the media to which they are exposed.
The Making Caring Common project's report The Talk: How Adults Can Promote Young People's Healthy Relationships and Prevent Misogyny and Sexual Harassment reveals that young people are tired of the media's overhyped focus on "hooking up" and would prefer to instead learn from their parents and their schools about healthy relationships. Some of the key findings from their report:
- ► 70% of the 18 to 25-year-olds surveyed would have liked more information from their parents about emotional aspects of romantic relationships
- ► 65% of those surveyed would have liked more guidance at school about emotional aspects of romantic relationships
- ► 76% of respondents never had a conversation with their parents about how to avoid sexually harassing others
- ► 32% of male and 22% of female respondents thought men should be dominant in romantic relationships
- ► 14% of males and 10% of females thought women should be dominant in romantic relationships
- ► 57% of responsdents never spoke with their parents about the “importance of not having sex with someone who is too intoxicated or impaired to make a decision about sex”
Jennifer Ann's Group, a nonprofit charity focused on teen dating violence prevention, uses prosocial video games in an effort to engage and educate young people about healthy relationships and related topics. Their program, Gaming Against Violence, has been producing, publishing, and researching video games intentionally designed to assist adolescents about a variety of topics including consent, healthy relationships, and teen dating violence prevention since 2008.
Healthy Dating Relationship Resources
Culture Overlord
Game Credits
Game Design
Lucas Vially
Art and Programming
Lucas Vially
Producer
Jennifer Ann's Group
Advisory Board
Katherine Brehm, Ph.D. - Clinical Psychologist
Myrna Deckert, Paso Del Norte Health Foundation
Elizabeth L. Richeson, Ph.D., MS PsyPharm - Clinical Psychologist
Paul Richeson, LCSW - Marriage and Family Counselor
Blake Riddell, Psy.D. - Clinical Psychologist
Game Reviewers
Leigh Alexander
Harley Baldwin
Maria Burns Ortiz
Simon Carless
Brian Crecente
Drew Crecente, JD
Sabrina Culyba
Dr. Pat DeLeon
Mark DeLoura
Dr. Ruud Jacobs
Keen Seong Liew
Stephanie Mathes
Dr. Brooke Morrill
Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson
Jo Sharpen
Peter Willington
Testing & Diverse Help
Vincent Vially
Noé Sultani
Péter György Szabó
Mil Beges
Sandro Ferrand
Stephanie Mathes
Game Soundtrack
f-r-a-g-i-l-e
Kevin Mac Leod
Monplaisir
Komiku
JNGS
axtoncrolley
andrewkn
Sponsors
The Estate of Dr. Angela E. Ladogana
Dr. David Wilbanks
Carefree Homes
Drew Crecente
Freeport McMoRan
Helen of Troy
Industrial Realty Group
Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson
Paul Richeson
Schell Games
Stanlee & Jerry Rubin
Verlander Enterprises, Inc.
El Paso Electric Company
WestStar Bank
Dr. Katherine and Russell Brehm
Judge Linda Chew
Fox Auto Team
Tomas G. Marino, DMD
Peak Behavioral Health Services
Dr. Cynthia Rivera
Tropicana Homes
Other Prosocial Video Games Produced by Jennifer Ann's Group
(many of our most current games can be found at jag.itch.io
Available now:
Still to come:
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All Around Us (Culture) Developed by Sam Schneider (USA)
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Break Free (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Anindya Mathur (India)
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CSPS (Consent) Developed by Berkley Staite (USA)
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Citizen Witch (Bystander Awareness) Developed by Lucas Vially (France)
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Courage in Silent Places (Culture) Developed by Naomi Norbez (USA)
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Dating Dangers 1.0 (Teen Dating Violence)
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A Decision of Paramount Importance (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Thomas Liu (USA)
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Destination: Love (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Toronja Concepts (Mexico)
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Escape Your Boyfriend's room (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Goyco Design Games (USA)
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Finding Jane (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Another Kind (Belgium)
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Heart's Keep (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Ben Pence (USA)
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Incoming Messages (Culture) Developed by Isaac Wirth (USA)
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Janie's Sketchbook (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by GPTouch (Thailand)
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Jellia's Friends (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Batty Media (USA)
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Knowledge can be your bulletproof vest (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Another Kind (Belgium)
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Last Shred of Reality (Gaslighting) Developed by Another Kind (Belgium)
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Let's Do It (Culture) Developed by Justin Van (USA)
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Moving On (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Gamers of Action (USA)
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Power and Control (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Jared Sain (USA)
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P.S. Be Brave (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by 99UNO (Argentina)
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Scare Me Away (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Brian Crick (USA)
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A Thousand Cuts (Consent | Culture) Developed by Elizabeth Ballou (USA)
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Untitled (2009) (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Jared Sain (USA)
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Valentine's Day (Culture) Developed by Jess Erion (USA)
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A Walk in the Park (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Jared Sain (USA)
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Would You Like Some Cake? (Consent) Developed by Kevin Chao (USA)
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Your Face (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Momoexe (USA)
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Your Space (Teen Dating Violence) Developed by Paul McGee, Sam Gross, Lyndsey Moulds, Ross McWilliam, kayfaraday (Ireland)
Teen Dating Violence Prevention Resources
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(CC BY-ND 4.0) This game is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. | Website design is © HTML5 UP
Jennifer Ann's Group® and Gaming Against Violence are trademarks of The Jennifer Ann Crecente Memorial Group, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit (EIN:20-4618499)