Forvis Mazars – Infiltrators

Showing what Forvis Mazars has to offer 

Forvis Mazars is an international audit, tax and advisory firm that offers a variety of services to its clients, delivering insight, specialism and tailored solutions. One of these services is cyber security advice and guidance.  

It’s a competitive area – so, Forvis Mazars wanted a unique way to get across the importance of cyber security for organisations, and the ways that Forvis Mazars can help them make sure they have robust defences. 

We worked with Forvis Mazars on a unique asymmetrical game that pits players in VR against a team playing on a tablet, to demonstrate how easy it can be for cyber criminals to get hold of sensitive information, and the difficult decisions that need to be made to stop them. 

An asymmetrical game with impact 

Forvis Mazars wanted something different to engage its potential clients at its cyber security workshops. Whatever the activity was, it had to fit neatly into a short window to spark discussion around cyber security during the wider workshop. Forvis Mazars also wanted the game to be multiplayer, rather than an experience where anyone wearing a headset would be cut off from others in the group. And, ideally, it’d be something that would position Forvis Mazars as a forward-thinking, innovative organisation.  

Together we came up with Infiltrators: an asymmetric game in which two players in VR attempt to break into and steal information from a fictional corporation. Meanwhile, an iPad team has to ward off their attacks.  

Aimed at C-suite executives, the game appeals to their competitive nature through scoring mechanisms, with the content itself based on real-life cyber security stories that will resonate with the audience. The tablet team has to work together against the clock to make pressured decisions on how to deal with the VR players’ attack, while the VR team can work closely or split up to cover maximum ground within their environment.  

For example, the VR players might use an unlocked smartphone to send a fake email to an employee. This triggers an alert and a decision for the iPad team – what limited resources should they use to counteract the threat?  

The game is more on the fun side for the VR team as they explore the office, either splitting up to cover more ground or working together on various tasks. But for the iPad team, they have limited time to respond to each threat, and have to think quickly about the best use of their resources. It gets them thinking about the importance of putting appropriate policies in place to stop these kinds of attacks. 

A social learning experience 

Key to this particular project was making the most of our social learning superpower. We’ve long been advocates of creating group learning experiences, which help capture the magic of learning from each other.  

Having a team on the iPad means they can benefit from existing knowledge about how to handle cyber security threats (though the time limit for each decision still adds plenty of pressure). Making the VR multiplayer means that the players aren’t left isolated from the rest of the group – they’re still involved with the game and working together. The game itself acts as a springboard for discussion, giving participants a grounding in just how vital cyber security is and just how easily threats can happen.  

While we don’t always advocate for scoring systems in these kinds of serious games, it proved a useful addition in this case. The scoring here appealed to the competitive nature of the C-suite audience. 

Bringing learnings from other experiences 

As you might imagine, there were plenty of moving parts to consider when creating this learning experience, but Forvis Mazars trusted our previous experience and expertise to get it right. 

For example, we’d worked on blended games before in experiences like CITB TunnelSkills and Severn Trent Chemical Leak Investigation. We brought in features that we’d used in other games like taking pictures, which we previously did in Southern Trent Pollution Control.  

We also carried out paper prototyping to nail down the specifics of the game and how it would work, which is a process we’ve used on several other serious game projects. It was a key step in working out any kinks ahead of developing for VR and the iPad app.