Ship Happens

Ship Happens provides players with the opportunity to practice safely intervening in situations where sexual and relationship violence and stalking are occurring, have the potential to occur and provide support in the aftermath of violence. The game depicts a fantastical world that is different enough from our own to be engaging and immersive, but similar enough to our own world to allow transfer from the skills practiced in-game to real-world intervention.

Our tellurian hero Zayke and his best gelatinous buddy Balthazar experience college life on other planets as they are sent on a whirlwind adventure through the galaxy. Ship Happens is a wacky, fun and challenging interactive, narrative game that takes place in the form of a comic book. Players click from panel to panel in order to progress through the story, while finding hidden items to solve the various puzzles and problems that they face in each chapter. During their adventures with Zayke, Ship Happens’ players encounter scenes of sexual harassment and violence. When exposed to these troubling scenarios, players are presented with choices for how to respond to the situation. By dragging panels with dialogue or actions that they wish to see Zayke use into empty frames, players can change the course of the game to better suit their style of problem-solving to deter potentially dangerous situations or assist victims with empathy and support in the aftermath of an assault. Filled with plenty of humorous tasks and objectives to complete, Ship Happens will certainly keep players engaged through time and space and help them learn to safely intervene in situations and change the outcomes!

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Credits
  • Executive Production: Mary Flanagan
  • Game Design: Mary Flanagan, Max Seidman, Sharyn J. Potter, Jane G. Stapleton, Prevention Innovations Research Center, University of New Hampshire
  • Additional Game Design: UNH Prevention Innovations Research Center Video Game Workgroup, Zuff Idries, Bineshii Hermes-Roach
  • Research: Sharyn J. Potter, Jane G. Stapleton, Prevention Innovations Research Center, University of New Hampshire
  • Additional Research: Hanna Hodges, Sunny Drescher, Lindsay Kusnarowis, Nikita Shaiva
  • Art: Nate Wooters
  • Writing: Max Seidman, Nate Wooters, Amanda Herz, Bineshii Hermes-Roach, Hannah Hodges, Nikita Shaiva, Shivang Sethi, Sharyn J. Potter, and Mary Flanagan
  • Additional Writing: Savannah Liu
  • Additional Art: Bineshii Hermes-Roach, Kane Lynch, Zuff Idries, Bineshii Hermes-Roach
  • UI Design: Daouna Jeong, Nikita Shaiva
  • UX Design: Nikita Shaiva, Christine Qi
  • Programming: Evgeny Prozorov, Max Seidman, Christine Qi and Jordan Hall
  • Additional Programming: Julia Holgado, Nick Feffer, Jordan Hall
  • Sound Design: Amanda Herz and Sukdith Punjasthitkul
  • Interaction Design: Bineshii Hermes-Roach and Savannah Liu
  • Photography: Savannah Liu
  • Prototyping: Savannah Liu, Luisa Vasquez, Bineshii Hermes-Roach
  • Playtesting: Zuff Idries
  • Initial Concept: Amanda Herz and Jordan Hall

This project was developed jointly by researchers at the University of New Hampshire Prevention Innovations Research Center and Tiltfactor at Dartmouth College and supported by Award No. 2014-VA-CX-0012, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this game are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.