In The Balance

About the Project

In The Balance is a multi-platform project that seeks to create a learning space that effectively responds to the "school-to-prison pipeline." The audience engagement campaign and multiplayer game is a co-extension of a documentary project that explores a case wherein a Tennessee family was murdered and six Kentuckians were sentenced to life in prison when they were teenagers. The goal of In The Balance is to provide a learning space where players may critically engage with broader issues relating to incarceration on a personal level, while also developing a sophisticated understanding of the unfathomably complicated criminal court system. Ultimately, the goal is to provide tools by which users and players may become actively involved in developing formal and informal learning networks oriented toward social action.

Take Action Games is a game design studio specializing in casual games for change. The goal of Take Action Games is to address content of social and political significance via innovative game design that traverses the intersections of computational art, narrative, journalism, activism, ethics, history and documentary. The TAG team strives to create interactive experiences that speak of critical issues with an approach that prioritizes subject-matter research and emotionality, in the hopes of expanding the expressive power of games and thereby engaging a far-reaching audience of casual and non-gamers.

The Fledgling Fund Impact

The Fledgling Fund was pleased to provide production and audience engagement support for In the Balance because we believe that this game will help expose the complexity and injustice of the U.S. prison system to new audiences. We believe that interactive multi-platform games have a unique ability to move audiences from passive to active engagement while simultaneously learning and sharing with their peers. The Fledgling Fund is interested in U.S. justice system reform and is confident that this project will strengthen the existing movement toward that goal.