Kamiel Maes

Game Designer and Programmer Portfolio

TZA – Healthcare technology awareness

Roles

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Project background

The TZA is an organization that promotes innovation and the integration of technology in the non-hospital healthcare industry. One of their biggest challenges in this process is the effort required to educate and convince healthcare professionals of the value of these technologies. To help solve this issue we developed a VR escape room prototype that they could use as a proof of concept to gather funding for the development of a full scale digital product.

Research

For this project we did extensive user research and playtesting with a variety of healthcare professionals and students. The Goals of this research where to determine what kind of gameplay would be most appealing to them as well as what the game needed to show to convince them of the value of the technology. The most important finding we got from this research is that these healthcare professionals make their patient care method decisions primarily based on the patients wants and needs, This meant they where very interested in our concepts that put them in the shoes of the patient since this helped them see the affect on the welfare of their patients.

Concept

Based on the research we decided to create a game from the perspective of the patient to show the healthcare professionals the value of the technologies for the patient. In this game the player is a demetia patient that is cleaning up for a visit from their family to do this they make use of healthcare technologies to guide their way and collect trophies as rewards for solving puzzles, helping them to remember their family members. The game also includes detailed information on the healthcare technologies for professionals that wish to know more about them.

Important contibutions

Player motivation system

A big challenge for this project was how to keep the players engadged during an educational experience and maintain their interest in the technologies presented.

To solve this issue i designed a reward system where the player gets collectables for completing the puzzles that they then place in a trophy shelf. the game then rewarded the player with both a celebration and narrative development. This Motivated players to complete the puzzles to complete their collection and kept them more immersed in the story further motivating them to complete the game. The increased motivation made them more likely to solve all the puzzles and show interest in the technologies after playing the game.

Skills and technologies