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The Glass Ceiling Games is a cathartic feminist punk augmented reality game for mobile.
Exeter alumna develops mobile game to slay everyday sexism
Alumna Hannah Wood (PhD English, 2017), Founder and Creative Director at south west creative studio, Story Juice, is developing a new feminist punk augmented reality game, The Glass Ceiling Games.
The game is part of the company’s mission to represent the stories of women and diverse genders in games, as well as support those developers in the industry where currently 70% are male.
The Glass Ceiling Games began development in June 2019 after Story Juice won a grant from the UK Games Fund for a prototype. Hannah was driven by a desire to foreground the underrepresented stories of women and diverse genders in games and applied personal experiences of sexism to the design. This was further informed by diverse focus groups, playtesting and input from other team members. The game’s development has since been funded by Story Juice client work and a small grant from Creative UK’s Ideate Plymouth programme, and the company have a crowdfunder in place for the remaining funds.
The mobile augmented reality experience blends the real and digital world through gameplay and gives players the chance to slay everyday sexism across six levels, each featuring a new fantasy anti-sexist sport—including slingshotting catcalls, macheteing unsolicited pix, raygunning mansplains and more for freedom, money and joy points. By mastering the fantasy sports, players boss up the ranks of a skyscraper called The System and smash the glass ceiling.
Hannah says: “The Glass Ceiling Games is a playful alternate power fantasy that makes people laugh, but also voices the sexism women and diverse genders face daily. Its goal is to provoke changes that can end sexism."
To learn more about the game visit https://glassceilinggames.com
Date: 1 June 2022