Loki's Loop

Bo$$BabyKoin Challenge

Mission

For the past decade, influencer and occasional fabulist Galen Terry has amassed a considerable fortune by pitching a variety of products – ranging from wellness supplements to sportsbook apps – to his millions of followers across multiple social media platforms. His latest venture is an investment opportunity based on a new digital currency, Bo$$BabyKoin. Your friend James is a huge fan of Terry, and he has convinced his parents to convert their savings into Bo$$BabyKoin, but he’s starting to have second thoughts. James’ parents are on the way to the bank to withdraw their savings, so you only have a short window of time to determine whether James’ parents are about to invest their life savings in a scam.

Background

Bo$$BabyKoin Challenge was designed to explore how persuasive messaging, influencer culture, manipulative techniques, and human biases shape how we interpret information. In this game, the subject is the lure of financial opportunities and the ways minority communities are frequently targeted. In the game, players encounter confident endorsements, selective data visualizations, coordinated social media activity, and even a deepfake video. Bo$$BabyKoin was co-designed with a group of BIPOC scholars.

For inquiries: please contact lokisloop@uw.edu

Game Specs

Target audience: Adults (ages 16-99); Can also work for younger teens 13+
Number of players: 4-6 players per team
Length: Game play 45-60 minutes; Debrief 30+ minutes

Contributors

Chris Gilliard
Kishonna Gray
Jasmine McNealy
Sava Saheli Singh

Loki’s Loop: Lindsay Morse, Jinha Lee, Chris Coward

Released: October 2023

Copyright © 2023 – CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

This document is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.