Week 2: Considering the type of game
I decided to target the healthcare industry with my learning game.
(Taken from DBLA)
Objectives:
Knowledge: Perform the procedural steps of patient care with 100% accuracy (including: giving medicine, hooking up an oxygen tank, suctioning the trach, changing the trach, using the ambubag)
Skills: Assess the patient on multiple metrics with accuracy. Use assessment data to make critical decisions with 100% accuracy.
Attitude: Demonstrate holistic awareness of the patient as a child in their home environment. Develop comfort with the patient care procedures.
This learning game is created for nurses in training or onboarding for a pediatric home healthcare job. Players take the role of nurses caring for a child with a tracheostomy. A game environment affords the advantage of providing a safe and lower stress environment in which to practice the practical and observational skills and critical decision making. Performing a trach change for the first time on a real patient is scary. Being able to practice first will help players build confidence, accuracy and memory of the procedural steps.
Players start the shift and earn points for performing actions. There is a window that shows the patient’s vitals. They can get information from assessing the patient and looking at the visual of the child on the screen. The charting action will bring up a text box where they can record information.
The child will experience respiratory distress and the nurse must make decisions on how to assess and address the problem. The yellow circles stand for procedures that the nurses must complete like a puzzle--the real life steps needed to perform that task. The game prompts the players to practice both critical decision making and practical hand skills in a safe environment with feedback throughout. At the end of the shift, the players get a summary of points and a choose-your-own-adventure style ending on the status of the child.
I believe that it will be most successful to plan for the game prototype in Articulate Storyline. I know how to use that software fairly well. I’m also using this opportunity to explore Unity, and have started a LinkedIn course. I think the best eventual platform for this game would be Unreal Engine because the graphics and movements could be more realistic. But, I’m not quite ready for that technology step.
I’m looking forward to examining the role of play and fun next week and applying it to the learning game. How fun should this be? Is this idea a simulation masquerading as a game or is it truly a game? Are the balance of elements right?
I feel like the next step is to outline and develop the game play, expanding on the outline above and adding shell screens. I think I would benefit from reviewing the sections on types of games, too.
