Misinformation is not a uniform challenge that can be addressed in the same manner everywhere. Efforts to combat misinformation, such as games for supporting the public navigate an increasingly complex information environment, should be tailored to people’s contexts and lived experiences.
What is localisation?
Localisation is a critical process for ensuring a product or service is relevant, appealing, and legally compliant across different countries. In the case of games, this typically involves such activities as translation, adapting visuals, and modifying cultural references, among others. Escape rooms are interactive, team-based games in which a group of players work together to solve puzzles and other challenges to achieve a particular goal related to the game’s overall story. In ESC-MISINFO, we are going beyond the typical steps in the localisation of the project’s two escape room games by adapting the game stories as well.
The first game, the Euphorigen Investigation, created by the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington (CIP/UW), revolves around the story of a brain-boosting supplement and the government’s plans to introduce it into the public water supply. The goal of the game is to determine if Euphorigen is safe or not by navigating misleading headlines, manipulated evidence, social media bots, and deepfake images and videos.
Why go to the trouble of changing the story?
When designing the game in the US context, CIP/UW focused the story on whether the government could be trusted, a decision they knew would trigger feelings of suspicion among the players that would lead them to doubt evidence suggesting the product might actually be safe. This initial distrust is important for the game’s learning goals. But countries have differing levels of trust in government, and there can be more appropriate and appealing actors to create this sense of suspicion (and in some places it might not be appropriate to cast doubt on government actions, even in a game).
For this reason, CIP/UW developed a localisation process that involves a set of structured codesign activities that allow teams in different countries to make significant changes to the overall game story. This results in games that share common game mechanics (e.g. the puzzles) but otherwise appear very different to the player. The new games can appear closely related to the original, or entirely different (e.g. Galaxy Challenge, also a Euphorigen adaptation, involves the story of a K-pop band and whether the management company is mistreating one of the band members).
Localisation workshops in the ESC-MISINFO project
The ESC-MISINFO project aims to create games that are highly relevant to local contexts in the three partner countries: Belgium (Flanders), Poland, and Slovenia. A first in-person localisation workshop was organised among project partners during the kick-off meeting to share knowledge and insight on the different ways misinformation manifests across different contexts and how the game narrative could be shaped to best appeal to the main target group: youth.
In a second step, Cultuurconnect, FRSI, and PiNA organised localisation workshops with public libraries each in their respective countries (Belgium, Poland, Slovenia), to further adapt the game’s narrative and elements and make it as relevant as possible for each country.
In Belgium, Cultuurconnect invited three public libraries to a one-day localisation workshop. All having extensive experience with youth in their libraries, they were able to estimate how they would react to the escape games: what should remain the same in the Belgian context, and what should be adapted? They concluded that the thematic focus of distrust in science is on point and extremely relevant in Belgian society today. As AI is becoming more and more prevalent, the public libraries agreed that the methods of deception in the game should mostly focus on the use of artificial intelligence.
In Slovenia, the one-day localisation workshop was very successful – the ten librarians warmly welcomed the concept of an escape room kit as a tool for promoting critical thinking and media literacy amongst their users. This motivated them to actively participate in the localisation process, adding Slovenian mountain folklore to the story of Euphorigen, which has been renamed ‘Focusin’ – a herbal remedy that might cause the downfall of one of Slovenia’s top cyclists. The libraries are sure the cycling spin will engage our Slovenian escape room users, as the sport is very popular nationally, providing additional motivation to investigate this potential doping scandal. They are all looking forward to testing the escape room kits, hoping the gamification methodology will draw even more people to their local libraries.
In Poland, the Information Society Development Foundation (FRSI) organised two online meetings with librarians from the three libraries participating in the project. During these meetings, they discussed the project and its objectives, as well as methods for conducting sessions for young people using escape room games. The libraries explored how to adapt the narrative to better reflect the needs and interests of young audiences in Poland. Together, they identified topics most commonly affected by disinformation encountered by young people. Various narrative ideas emerged, including modifying the theme and characters of the Euphorigen game. Ultimately, the decision was made to maintain a storyline similar to the original game, but with slightly adjusted characters; in the Polish version, the creator of the film the players are searching for is a YouTuber who popularises science. The libraries agreed that the game’s themes – the manipulation of scientific data and the use of artificial intelligence to create false content – are highly relevant and essential subjects for libraries’ educational activities.
