HeartGuard VR: Immersive Romance Scam Education

HeartGuard VR: Immersive Romance Scam Education describes a virtual reality serious game designed to educate the public about romance scams and to reduce victimization through interactive learning. The project situates learning in an immersive VR environment built with Unity and interfaced to VR headsets via SteamVR. In the game, players assume the role of an AI security assistant who classify messages received by the main character, Claire, as genuine or scam. The central narrative follows a romance scam perpetrated by a character named Freddie, with additional conversations to create social realism and to illustrate how scams escalate from a dating app to other channels. The game includes consequences for misclassifications and uses a retro technology aesthetic to frame the user experience, with a final reveal that ties the fiction to real-world outcomes. The study reporting on HeartGuard VR recruited ten participants, conducted ethics-approved testing at Abertay University, and gathered data through a pre- and post-play questionnaire. The evaluation used a modified System Usability Scale to assess usability and a tailored Experience Economy Model to evaluate learning, entertainment, aesthetics, escapism, and overall VR experience. Participants completed demographics and questions about prior VR use and awareness of romance scams. Results indicate an average SUS score of 79.75 (range 72.5–90), suggesting above-average usability, though Cronbach’s alpha was 0.4, reflecting limited internal consistency in this small sample. Most participants were 18–24, resided in the UK or US, and had prior VR experience; about half owned a VR headset and reported little VR sickness. Overall, the authors propose HeartGuard VR as a potential publicly available intervention to raise awareness and defenses against romance scams, while acknowledging the study’s limitations and the need for broader testing.