A team of us at ISL built Fake News!, the iOS app-based game, to highlight how easy it is for any of us to get tripped up by false news stories (it's like Tinder...for our democracy). My role on this project was as the lead designer, working closely with our development team and creative direction to create a fun-to-use, fun-to-look-at app.
"Fake news is a real problem. Recently, the Pew Research Center found that about two thirds of U.S. adults say completely made-up news causes a great deal of confusion about current events. So we built Fake News!, a simple game to test our collective ability to distinguish between what's true, and what's just been tweeted."
See the whole project recap over on the ISL blog.
We styled the game like a retro arcade game, referencing 8-bit video games, to give the game a lighthearted feel while covering what can be a pretty serious, often depressing subject. Additionally, for our mostly millennial audience, the 90s 8 bit style evokes nostalgic memories of childhood arcade games, which is a great feeling to nurture while teaching something new with the content. We also incorporated beloved elements of 90s video games, like a leaderboard, to add an incentive for people to play multiple times (and the top news sleuths worldwide are listed on our website).
The Team —
Product Owner: DJ Saul
Creative Director: Zach Goodwin
Lead Designer: Maggie Gaudaen
Director of Technology: Jeremy Carbaugh
Lead Mobile Developer: Taylor Guidon
Hardware Designer: Zach Saale
Mobile Development Support: Thomas Degry
Front End Developer: Lee-Anne Clark
Project Manager: Josh Strupp
Design Support: Max Breaux