Cyber Quest
Strategic WEB GAME
Role
Lead Designer
collaborators
Lukas Zirngibl (Team lead)
Roman Burkard (Dev)
DESIGN GOAL
To visualise and explain the complexity of cyber security topics for analysts in an easy and engaging way.
I led the design and development of a playful and educational game environment where users defend against cyber attacks through quests set in a cyberpunk backdrop. By completing quests and answering questions on cyber security topics, users earn rewards and level up. At first, I conducted user research with the companies employees as the target audience, to pinpoint knowledge gaps. Through interviews and prototype tests, the team identified the effectiveness of small code challenges and security quests in fostering a deeper understanding of cyber security.
At the start of the game, users can choose a character. Each character is determined to a different cyber security department and has several strength and weaknesses, containing different knowledge challenges. The user can then pick an available quest and has to solve different challenges on the chosen cyber security category. Correctly answered quests will be rewarded with gemstones that can be collected. Higher levels can be reached throughout the game and rewards.
Each category is assigned to a country on the world map. Once the player picks a category, they can choose different challenges on the assigned country. By combining engaging gameplay with educational content an interactive experience was created, that broadened users' understanding of cyber security.
Each challenge contains specific security questions regarding that field. To earn points and level up all challenges need to be answered correctly. The higher the level, the more sophisticated the challenge questions and the more points can be collected.
After a successful mission, a dashboard is showcased to the player, showing different information on ranking, record, earned points, levels and a sum up of the solved questions.
The game contains an admin user section, in which cyber security experts choose a company starting path from the company platform to enter new challenging quests for other employees. Admin users can choose a country on the world map, where they define and allocate challenges and questions from the companies cyber security training catalog.