Problem:
The lack of education with regards to healthcare, how to manage diseases and how to identify important situations.
Important lessons:
- Cleanliness
- Danger of open wounds and secondary infection
- How you can get infected
- What are common bug types to look out for
- Why stale water and old food is bad
- How to prevent getting sick
- How to cure diseases
- How to identify emergency situations and what to do
- Understanding how diseases work in the body (Pathology & Mechanism) and the drugs that cure them
- Common areas to find bacteria and how they spread
- The dangers of drugs!!
- The differences between good and bad bacteria
Storyline:
You are a single cell organism trying to survive the harsh environments of the outside world. Your main goal is to populate as many surface areas as you can and infect people.
- Adversaries: viruses & prions
- Bacteria’s fight with antibodies and your immunity
- Bacteria’s desires and achievements (life lessons & dreams of making it big)
- Problems: Medication, cleanliness, doctors
Different stages (example):
- Swimming through the arteries (avoiding the antibodies)
- Infecting people (finding vulnerable spots)
- Living outside (taking over areas)
- Starting out (growth; wet stain microscope)
Game Type:
It will be a 2D game with basic movement and interacting controls. You will see the bacteria as though you’re looking through a microscope, moving it up and down, left and right. You try and survive by living in areas that are habitable for bacteria (outside) and avoiding the body’s immune system (when trying to infect people).
Key Game elements:
- Should be entertaining, quirky, informative, unique and constantly changing
- It should be colourful with smooth texture and a cartoon style animation
- Easy to control with only a few keys (e.g. 2,4,6,8 for moving)
I feel this virtual gaming app would be a really fun way of teaching people the importance of healthcare, of taking medication and of going to the doctor when required. My hope is that it will decrease epidemics by making people aware of how germs spread and how to cure infections.