un-TILTED!
Designing aggression on purpose: A co-op tablet game that triggers real conflict, then teaches kids to regulate it.
un-TILTED! won Gold at the 2024 Serious Play Awards.
UC Berkeley | Risk Resilience Lab . Now live with 280-youth field trial.
Game Designer
MY ROLE
Shared Tablet
PLATFORM . OFFLINE
Boys 9-12
TARGET AUDIENCE
THE BRIEF
Create a game that reliably triggers interpersonal aggression in young players, then gives them tools to regulate it in the moment. Commissioned by UC Berkeley's Risk Resilience Lab for an afterschool prevention program.
MY DESIGN
A shared-screen co-op tower defense with aggression engineered at three layers:
1
Shared resource pool
Ambiguity creates perceived unfairness, triggering low-level interpersonal friction.
2
Individual scoring inside co-op play
Cooperation and rivalry coexist in the same actions, every choice is simultaneously helpful and competitive.
3
TILT Bomb events
Forces direct confrontation, and an explicit revenge-or-regulate choice becoming the intervention itself.
The shared tablet screen + tournament structure = proximity and stakes amplifying tension ⟶ triggering interpersonal aggression.
GAME LOOP
Proximity amplifies tension
Tournament
amplify stakes
Resources create ambiguity
Co-op builds trust
Tilt Bomb betrays it
Regulate or Revenge
Data Captured
