Every clue.
Changes everything.

The opportunity to teach students critical thinking is often severely underrepresented in traditional digital forensics curricula. Such an oversight can leave an investigative workforce unable to review digital artefacts with the analytical rigour required in complex, ambiguous cases—where investigators must judge not only what evidence appears to show, but also whether it is trustworthy. As AI-generation technologies (including deepfake generators) become increasingly sophisticated and accessible, the ability of a digital forensics investigator to discern inconsistencies and assess source credibility becomes critical. This paper presents a multi-AI-powered NPC (non-playable character) extension to an existing digital forensics game environment, designed to support educator-authored scenarios featuring multiple witnesses, competing accounts, and evidence-gated disclosures. Drawing on research on epistemic cognition, the extension enables educators to stage multiple sources with distinct evidence, claims, and perspective-bounded disclosures for students to compare and corroborate, rather than treating dialogue as a single authoritative channel. We report the architecture and runtime authoring mechanisms of the extension, and outline a preliminary scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)-oriented deployment and descriptive analysis frame grounded in built-in chat, progression, and audit instrumentation. Early observations of the enhanced game, deployed in a postgraduate digital forensics module setting, suggest that the extension gives educators a practical way to target source evaluation and evidence corroboration under uncertainty.

In an era where digital crimes are escalating, the proficiency of digital forensics experts in both technical analysis and legal testimony is paramount. This paper introduces an innovative, problem-based learning approach to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical expertise in digital forensics students. Through a simulated digital forensics investigation coupled with a courtroom role-play, this exercise immerses students in the realities of digital forensic analysis and the intricacies of legal proceedings. Utilising Casey's Case/Incident Resolution Process as the foundation, the exercise enhances technical skills and hones the competencies required for compelling courtroom testimony. The effectiveness of this educational approach is evaluated, demonstrating its potential to cultivate well-rounded digital forensics professionals equipped for the challenges of modern criminal investigations.

Teaching digital forensics can be regarded as being rather challenging due to the multi-faceted nature of a typical investigation, leading to the call for providing digital forensics students with a context that is clearer and more encompassing in representing the investigative process. This paper describes how an online gaming engine can be leveraged to deliver students with such a learning experience. We report on the experiences reported by our students who completed the exercise and provide suggestions going forward on how the system can potentially be extended to enhance the overall realization of a full case that encompasses the typical resolution of a case or incident.

Striking a balance between theory and practice in computer forensics education is considered essential to producing successful graduates with the necessary skills to take on cybersecurity challenges in the workplace. Adequately incorporating both such aspects can be particularly challenging, especially in courses or modules offered within a short time-frame. In such situations, preparing the students will require that they are incentivized to actively engage with the extensive background learning material and remain current on latest developments to correctly grasp the theoretical underpinning of the subject. In this paper, we describe the development of an adventure game to make the learning of applicable theory attractive and relevant. ForenCity takes the form of a web-based scavenger hunt in which students must apply their knowledge of computer forensics and correctly process digital evidence and progress through the game.