When Mira Calls

The Problem

Children between eleven and thirteen are spending more time online than ever before. However, being among the most active age groups on the internet, cybersecurity is rarely taught in middle schools, leaving a discrepancy between the time kids spend online and how equipped they are to navigate it safely. 

What makes this gap especially concerning is that most online risks at this age are social. Cybersecurity trainings often address technical skill building, but breaches succeed because of exploitation of behaviors, and the dangers of online spaces are not limited to scams and account privacy. Without a framework for recognizing when everyday behaviors are being taken advantage of, or when they may be acting unsafely online, children are left vulnerable in ways which software and parental controls cannot fully address. 

Parents often want to help bridge this gap but struggle with where to begin. Conversations about online safety can feel technical, abstract, or uncomfortably close to surveillance. What's missing is a shared starting point that makes the conversation feel natural rather than like a lecture. 

Our Solution

When Mira Calls is a narrative-based, adventure game in which players take on the role of the protagonist searching for a missing aunt. While uncovering clues across three interconnected worlds, players learn key concepts in detecting scams, managing their digital footprints, and understanding social engineering and the permanence of the internet. 

Alongside the game, a Parent Conversation Guide is provided to gives adults and families world-by-world conversation starters. In this way, When Mira Calls becomes the catalyst for household cybersecurity discussions. 

Our Approach

Our team combined backgrounds in UX research, cybersecurity, and software development to build When Mira Calls from the ground up. Our process included:

• Literature review and expert consultation to identify which cybersecurity concepts were most relevant to this age group, most teachable within a game format, and most absent from existing tools. We worked directly with cybersecurity practitioners and children's education specialists across multiple rounds of feedback.
• Narrative-first curriculum design that sequences every concept so that players encounter a situation before the skill is named. This allows the player to build instinct through experience rather than delivering rules upfront.
• Qualitative user research to validate the game's core concepts and surface opportunities to add more interactive moments for future iterations.

When Mira Calls is a free, browser based game. You may also download it to play locally.