2013 Winning Video Games

Since 2008, Jennifer Ann's Group has sponsored the Life.Love. Game Design Challenge to challenge video game designers and developers to create video games about teen dating violence. Our goal is to increase awareness about teen dating violence as well as provide educational information to help teens, tweens, and young adults identify and avoid abusive relationships.

This is the fourth year in a row that the first place winning video game has come from outside of the U.S. In fact, we have a very international presence this year with the winning games coming from Belgium, Thailand, Ireland, and Argentina!

Please play these games to learn about healthy and unhealthy relationship behavior and then share these games with your friends, family, and classmates. Together we can #stopTDV!

This year we are sharing these video games one-by-one so be sure and sign up to receive notification by email when each game becomes available - on the web - for Android - and for iOS!

1st Place Game About Teen Dating Violence

For 2013 we are excited to award first place prize to Jean HEHN from Belgium. Jean HEHN also won in 2011 with "Finding Jane".

First place winning video game 2013
"Love in the Dumpster"
by Jean HEHN

Belgium

Title screen for 2013 first place winning video game to prevent teen dating violence.

2nd Place Winner to Stop Dating Violence

For 2013 we are pleased to award the second place prize to Guts (Hima) Rodsavas and Piti Yindee of GPTouch from Thailand. GPTouch also won in 2010 with "Grace's Diary" available online and for your Android device.

Note: Although not required we suggest that you first play Grace's Diary before Janie's Sketchbook. Grace's Diary presents a story of dating violence that provides an ideal foundation for Janie's Sketchbook.

Second place winning video game 2013
"Janie's Sketchbook"
by Guts (Hima) Rodsavas and Piti Yindee of GPTouch

Thailand

Janie's Sketchbook - 2013 2nd place winning video game to prevent teen dating violence.

3rd Place Video Game to Stop Violence

For 2013 we are pleased to award the third place prize to Paul McGee, Sam Gross, Lyndsey Moulds, Ross McWilliam, and kayfaraday from Ireland with their game "YourSpace." This game's approach to dating abuse is especially timely given the significant impact that the world of technology plays in teen dating violence. Please check back later or register to be notified when this innovative video game is available!

Third place winning video game 2013
"YourSpace"
by Paul McGee, Sam Gross, Lyndsey Moulds, Ross McWilliam, and kayfaraday

Ireland

 

2013 Third Place winning video game to stop teen dating violence, YourSpace from Paul McGee

Runner-Up Video Game to #stopTDV

For 2013 we are pleased to award the door prize to our first-ever bilingual entry: "What Kind of Monster is Your Boyfriend?" from 99Uno in Argentina. This lighthearted take on the cultural obsession with all things teen-monster-ish has an important message to share with the teen monster in your life.

Winning video game 2013
"What Kind of Monster is Your Boyfriend?"
by 99Uno

Argentina

 

screenshot of 99Uno's winning video game

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These video games are free to play and to share with your friends and family.
However, Jennifer Ann's Group is a non-profit organization and receives no government funding.
If you agree with what we're doing please help - we rely on your donations to keep doing what we're doing!

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2013 Sponsors

Digitalmill, Inc.*
Games for Health Project
Kognito Interactive
Schell Games
Mary-Ann Liebert Publishing
Child's Play Charity
 
* Made possible by the Dewey Winburne Community Service Award from SxSW Interactive
Help us spread
the word!

These games are free but we rely 100% on donations to continue our efforts.


2013 Judges

2013 Judges

Leigh Alexander Dr. Erica Bowen
Simon Carless
Leigh Alexander is editor at large at industry news site Gamasutra, and is a regular columnist for Edge magazine, Vice Creators' Project, and Kotaku. She currently contributes features and cultural commentary on online culture and the interactive entertainment landscape to outlets including Polygon, Boing Boing and numerous others, and blogs infrequently at Sexy Videogameland. Dr. Erica Bowen is a Registered Forensic Psychologist with the Health Professions Council, a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society, and Reader in the Psychology of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) at Coventry University. Dr. Bowen is also the director of the Violence and Interpersonal Aggression (VIA) research group and the academic lead on the EU Daphne funded project "Changing Attitudes to Violence in Adolescence" (CAVA) which has developed "Green Acres High School," a video game used as part of a classroom curriculum to prevent violence in teenage relationships. Simon Carless is an EVP at UBM Tech, overseeing the Game Developers Conferences in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Germany, and China. He also oversees the double Webby award-winning Gamasutra website, and the Black Hat information security conferences. He has previously worked as a lead game designer at Kuju Entertainment, Eidos Interactive and Atari.
Brian Crecente Drew Crecente Jane McGonigal PhD
Brian Crecente is a journalist and columnist, a founding editor and the News Editor for Polygon, he also writes Good Game, a weekly column internationally syndicated by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Crecente was named one of the 20 most influential people in the video game industry over the past 20 years by GamePro in 2009 and one of gaming's Top 50 journalists by Edge in 2006. He was featured in a 5280 biography. He has spoken at the Smithsonian, GDC, PAX and UCLA. Crecente is married and has one child. He is Jennifer Ann Crecente's uncle. Drew Crecente is founder and executive director of Jennifer Ann's Group. He is also the founder of L.I.V.E, an organization focusing on the impact of IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) on the practice of Law, and speaks about IPV, teen dating violence, and the use of video games for social change. His speaking engagements include the National Youth at Risk Conference, the Global Humanitarian Summit, Games for Health, and Games for Health Europe conferences. He is Jennifer Ann Crecente's father. Jane McGonigal, PhD is the New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World - and the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped more than 200,000 players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson Ben Sawyer Jo Sharpen
Dr. Elizabeth L. Richeson is a Psychologist in El Paso, Texas, the head of the Advisory Board for Jennifer Ann's Group, and former president of the Texas Psychological Foundation. She is an expert on teen dating violence, appears regularly on news and talk shows, and lectures nationwide on a variety of issues related to teenagers, young adults, and relationships. She is Jennifer Ann Crecente's grandmother. Ben Sawyer is the co-founder of Digitalmill, a games consulting firm based in Portland, Maine. Since beginning his career in game development over ten years ago, he has pioneered major initiatives in the field of serious games and has become a nationally recognized leader within the games community. He is the co-founder of the Serious Games Initiative, a project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and also co-founder of the Games for Health project which connects health professionals, researchers, and game developers in order to advance the development of health games and game technologies. The Games for Health project receives major funding from the Pioneer Portfolio, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Jo Sharpen is the manager of the Children and Young People's Project at AVA (Against Violence and Abuse) in the U.K. and wrote the national U.K. toolkit on children, young people and domestic violence for practitioners, Improving Safety, Reducing Harm, published by the Department of Health in 2009. She has also written numerous policy briefings, guidance and training packages on violence against women and girls; currently she is writing a book on domestic violence in teenage relationships.
Elin Stebbins Waldal  
Elin Stebbins Waldal is a speaker; the award-winning author of Tornado Warning, A Memoir of Teen Dating Violence And Its Effect On A Woman's Life; and the founder of Girls kNOw More, an organization whose mission is to help build confidence in middle-school-age girls. She lives in Southern California with her husband, three children, and their family dog.