“Spent”

👏 Director, Technical Account Management at Salesforce — Emoti-Con Judge

Wow, your pitch sounds incredibly powerful and impactful! Addressing the issue of poverty is crucial, and your project aims to tackle it in a unique and engaging way. The fact that you were motivated to research poverty due to shocking statistics shows your dedication to understanding and raising awareness about the problem.

Developing a game to put people in the shoes of the homeless is a brilliant approach. By immersing players in the experience of a man who just lost his job, you provide an opportunity for empathy and understanding. Allowing players to make choices that determine their fateliving in poverty or escaping itcreates a sense of agency and personal investment in the game. The inclusion of outcomes and consequences for each choice enhances the educational aspect, as players can see the direct impact of their decisions.

Your simulation game has the potential to be a powerful tool for education and advocacy. It can help players gain a deeper understanding of the choices and circumstances that can lead to homelessness. By fostering empathy and awareness, your project can contribute to preventing homelessness by encouraging individuals to make informed choices and support initiatives that address poverty.

To further enhance your pitch, you could consider providing more details on the specific mechanics and gameplay elements of the simulation game. How will players navigate the choices? Will there be any additional challenges or obstacles they encounter? Additionally, it might be helpful to outline how you plan to distribute and promote the game to ensure it reaches a wide audience and achieves its educational goals.

Overall, your project has great potential to make a significant impact in addressing poverty and educating people about its causes and prevention. Good luck with its development!

👏 Lead Immersive Designer/ Content Lead at IBM — Emoti-Con Judge

Video gaming is a really cool way to engage your audience with heavy topics while keeping them engaged. This is an interesting project that has a lot of potential for different storylines. I would recommend looking into how you can incorporate additional resources and some of those statistics you learned about. Also, consider how you can make the player connect more with the main character - maybe add a backstory or introduce them.

This is a really innovative way of looking at a complex issue! Keep up the good work and keep exploring how you can continue telling stories in a unique way.

👏 IT Infrastructure Support at ArcherPoint — Emoti-Con Judge

It's impossible to get out of poverty without outside assistance. The quality and scarcity of resources often cost way more in the long run because they can't afford the upfront costs of a "better" resource.
The idea to be able to immerse yourself in the lives of millions of people in poverty and face the same difficult choices and obstacles is a great way to educate people on the reality they are often blind to.

I would add more personal details so people get really connected and invested with a person. It's easier to care for "John" vs some "random guy". Also I think you should prevent successful outcomes. Often people go in search for food/shelter/clothing but are unable to get them. The "you found nothing" after spending time searching is the reality for so many.

I can see a lot of thought and effort went into this project to bring awareness to a difficult topic that is both educational, engaging and (hopefully for others) eye-opening.

👏 Associate Professor at Lehman College / CUNY — Emoti-Con Judge

Good beginnings but more needs to be developed about why poverty is such a huge problem as well as the different socio-economic levels of poverty and how some of it is mental and some if physical, etc.. I think making a game about poverty could have potential but it needs to be