The Emergent Media Center at Champlain College is intent on pushing creative technologies beyond what we know, by integrating advanced technological tools with cultural awareness, creativity, communication, and a sense of history and place. When combined, these skills are paramount to success in many professional fields in today’s global economy.
Breakaway is an episodic, web-based game for boys 8-15 being developed by over 70 students at Champlain College’s Emergent Media Center in Burlington, Vermont in collaboration with Population Media Center, the leading authority in using the Sabido methodology for radio and television dramas around the globe, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Breakaway is part of the worldwide fight against poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction through attainment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. It is being developed under the UN Secretary General’s UNiTE campaign.
Breakaway: Key Facts & Features
- To be unveiled during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa June 11-July 11 and based upon the FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football) "Fair Play" rules
- World famous soccer star Samuel Eto’o, striker for Football Club Internazionale Milano, is the spokesman for Breakaway. He will be featured in interviews, game trailers, PSAs and as an in-game character.
- Will be released episodically in six chapters from June through December 2010.
- Will be distributed locally in Africa during the FIFA World Cup.
- Will be distributed globally via the web in English, French, and Spanish.
- Be the champion in an interactive, branching storyline: Make a positive stand or float along through the dynamic narrative!
- Play fair, make friends, and construct your legacy: Choose your actions on and off the field to influence teammate opinions and training options.
- Learn exciting football moves: Your character can learn up to 20 special moves from a selection of many more!
- Play your way to victory in over 12 football matches: Enjoy team scrimmages, full matches, and a championship game you’ll never forget!
- Free to play!
Breakaway is a game that offers youth the chance to discover how to become a champion. The game offers an engaging and fun way to develop successful intrapersonal skills. Through an intensifying story arch and unique game mechanics, the player encounters real life situations that resonate with a teen’s experience such as peer pressure, competition, collaboration, teamwork, bullying and negative gender stereotypes. Breakaway gives the player choices that allow them to make decisions, face consequences, reflect, and practice behaviors in a game and story format.
The player becomes a teen intent on transforming into a winning football/soccer player. Gameplay is based on football performance and on navigating community-based relationships. The story of Breakaway takes on a life of its own to mirror the choices a player makes on and off the field solidifying their impact, success, and failure, on the player’s journey to the football championships. The player experiences diverse viewpoints and perspectives. To be replayed multiple times with different endings, the player is challenged to make complex decisions that influence the future of the team, his family, and the larger community. Using a combination of complex, multi-perspective narrative choices, skill based training games, and tactical football matches, Breakaway challenges players to become true champions in football, on and off field, during and away from the game.
To see Episode I (of 14 total), now in beta testing, click here: http://www.breakawaygame.com (follow instructions under “Play the Game”).
Prev: 
Next: 
