The archive · Content & Film · Marketing decision · 2022–2023
Girls Who Code Girls lets girls code diverse characters, then hands game makers the data
An experience that recruits girls into gaming careers by having them code their own diverse, licensable characters — over 6,000 combinations possible.
Girls Who Code
What it had to solve
Gaming has a gender problem on two fronts at once: the industry that makes games and the characters inside them. Girls Who Code wanted to get young, aspiring female coders interested in a gaming career, and needed an invitation that felt concrete — a real taste of what coding for games can do, not a lecture about the industry.
How it works
Gaming has a gender problem that runs in two directions at once: the people who make games and the characters inside them. Girls Who Code wanted to use that imbalance to get young, aspiring female coders interested in a gaming career. The challenge was to make the invitation concrete — not a lecture about the industry, but a real taste of what coding for games can do.
Girls Who Code Girls answered with a first-of-its-kind experience. Using CSS, HTML, JavaScript and Python, girls coded a game character's body type, skin tone, facial features, hair and outfits, watching their choices shape a character that looked like them. More than 6,000 diverse character combinations were possible, and the characters were licensable — a genuine entry point to a gaming career rather than a one-off gimmick.
The experience did not end with the avatar. The data collected was shared with top gaming companies, urging them to improve their characters and change the future of gaming, so every girl's coded choices doubled as evidence of what players want. The work earned two Wood Pencils at D&AD in 2023 and sits in the D&AD Awards archive under Experiential: Activation & Participation.
Why it lands
- It recruits with the skill itself: the pitch for a gaming career is an act of coding, not an explanation about one.
- Diversity is the variable, not the ask: body type, skin tone, facial features, hair and outfits are what the girl controls, so representation is something she makes.
- The output is data: more than 6,000 combinations were collected and shared with top gaming companies, turning participation into an argument the industry can act on.
- It uses real languages — CSS, HTML, JavaScript and Python — so playing the experience is also a first coding lesson.
What it did
The experience produced more than 6,000 possible combinations of self-representative characters, and the data was handed to top gaming companies as a working argument for more diverse game characters. D&AD recognised the work with two Wood Pencils in 2023, for user participation and virtual activation.
What you can take
To attract people to an industry that does not represent them, let them practise the skill on the representation they want — and route every participant's output back to the industry as data.
Since then
Girls Who Code Girls launched in December 2022, during Computer Science Education Week. The campaign earned two Wood Pencils at D&AD in 2023 — one for user participation in Digital and one as a standout virtual activation in Experiential — and its archive page remains a reference for an experiential activation that doubles as a recruitment tool. The character library was built to be licensable and offered to gaming companies, keeping the experience working as an argument for representation after the campaign week ended.
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