Decisions That Matter
“An Interactive Story with Real Stakes”
Project Title: Patronus
Team Members: Cewon Kim, Kirsten Rispin, Laxman Deepak Raj Jayakumar, Mahardiansyah Kartika, Stephanie Fawaz, Wenyu Jiang
Faculty Advisors: Ralph Vituccio, Chris Klug, Andy Norman
Client: Jessica Klein, coordinator of Carnegie Mellon University’s Gender Programs and Sexual Violence Prevention
The Idea
In 2014, the Obama administration launched “It’s On Us” — a campaign dedicated to raising awareness around sexual assault on college campuses and encouraging students to take steps to prevent it.
Colleges and universities across the country, recognizing that the standard lectures and workshops did not address how to intervene in difficult, real-life situations, started figuring out new ways of approaching the problem. For Jess Klein, CMU’s coordinator of Gender Programs and Sexual Violence Prevention, it was her job.
At the same time, ETC Teaching Professor Ralph Vituccio was teaching a unique class with special faculty member Andy Norman. Each semester, students were tasked with finding a solution to a new social problem. That semester, Norman and Vituccio had chosen campus sexual assault as a focus. They asked Klein if she would be open to being a client on an interactive ETC student project connected to the course that would address the topic. She said yes, and team Patronus was born.
The team set out to create an interactive graphic novel that would introduce users to the principles of bystander intervention through narrative. Their goal was for users to feel empowered by the experience and to realize that everyone has the ability and agency to stop incidents of harassment and violence. The name for their project? Decisions That Matter.
We really wanted to make something that could at least start conversations that could begin to change young people’s views on the subject matter, and hopefully begin to change a culture — even if it was going to be a very slow evolution.
Kirsten Rispin (ETC ‘16)
Senior Production Manager at Schell Games
The Process
Each phase of development for Decisions That Matter was driven by this core goal. Early on, they decided to structure the experience around four key “incidents” that demonstrated different kinds of gender-based violence — from random catcalling to boundaries blurring at a drunken party.
The team developed a production pipeline that incorporated all the various stakeholders, one that started with photographing CMU drama students acting out the scenes, then creating line and environment art, and finally integrating the panels into an HTML5 web experience. Dialogue was written and refined through workshops with undergraduate students and faculty and staff experts, including team client Jess Klein.
Playtesting was one constant throughout. Through feedback from students, faculty, and outside testers at the ETC and on main campus, the team refined everything from panel transitions and UI to dialogue tone and intervention options. Insights from these tests led to key changes, such as focusing on two high-impact incidents instead of four and adding a visual data dashboard to help future facilitators guide post-experience discussions.
By semester’s end, the team delivered a polished product ready to be used as part of sexual violence prevention programming.
There is no product on the market that I have witnessed that focuses solely on the bystander experience, especially the way that it is presented with Decisions That Matter.
Jessica Klein
former CMU coordinator of Gender Programs and Sexual Violence Prevention and team client
- Gold Medal Winner at the 2015 International Serious Play Awards, an international competition for educational games
- Recipient of the “In Spirit” Award at Let’s Play PA, an annual conference for PA-based game developers
- Widely covered in major media outlets, including the Huffington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Los Angeles Times, Grist, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Decisions That Matter demonstrated how transformational games can spark national conversations about challenging social issues—and serve as a powerful complement to prevention programs. The project earned significant national attention for its innovative approach to sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention.
And because Decisions That Matter was delivered as an online experience, universities and prevention organizations nationwide were able to adopt and share it — broadening its reach well beyond Carnegie Mellon.
For the ETC team, the project reinforced a core belief: play can drive empathy, reflection, and real-world impact. By inviting players to actively explore complex situations, the game helped foster greater awareness, preparedness, and cultural change — one choice at a time.