Serious Game Development and Medicine

 Jan Markus Milan, Verrazzano Class of 2021, completed major in Computer Science

 

I have always enjoyed playing video games, and it’s one of the reasons I got into computer science. When seats opened for CSC 523: Serious Game Development, during my junior year, I immediately signed up for it. Dr. Deborah Sturm taught us how to use the Unity Engine to create games, design levels, make animations, and write scripts in C#. Our class was required to team up with someone to make a full-fledged game that taught people about an educational topic, or a “serious game”, and I teamed up with fellow Verrazano student Jasper Caballero. Inspired by the nursing program, he thought about creating a game to teach people about medications. I agreed, and we immediately started developing the medicine game, called Meducation.

Given the fact that we were completely new to Unity and C# at the time, the whole experience was not smooth sailing. There was a lot of trial and error involved, hours of self-studying, and information gathering about specific medications taught in the nursing program to get the game up and running, look aesthetically pleasing, and be as accurate as possible. We eventually demoed the game to the rest of the class at the end of the semester and received a lot of positive feedback. Through survey results, we found that the game was successful in teaching people about medications, and thus we achieved our goal. Once the semester ended, so did the development of Meducation.

Fast-forward a year later to 2020. I needed to choose a topic for my capstone project, and the first thing that came to mind was my gaming experience in CSC 523. The thought did not come from nowhere however, as there were several factors that led me to the idea. The whole process of creating a game, while somewhat tedious, was rather fun and exciting. The research into the medications taught in the nursing program led me to have an interest in the topic. Also, there was a previous capstone project about a 3D game that taught people about programming, a very similar concept and a project that could be referenced. Hence, I teamed up once again with Jasper Caballero and asked Dr. Sturm to be our mentor. The development of Meducation began once more after a year of stagnation.

With the feedback previously provided by students in CSC 523, we knew what changes needed to be made to the game and how we could improve it. We worked on applying the changes and sending the game to people to get results on whether they managed to learn something about medications. There were varying amounts of feedback, from positive and encouraging, to harsh and critical, but most people managed to take away something from the game. The purpose of the game was to teach people about medications, and it did.

Ultimately, it was a very interesting experience. I learned so much and it was enjoyable and satisfying on both a personal and professional level. One of my regrets is that due to the coronavirus pandemic, we could not get much feedback from professors in the Nursing department. The game, while achieving its purpose, was not proofread or validated by industry experts, nor did it resemble the real-life processes of diagnosing patients. It is a shame that it had to be this way but still, this was an unforgettable experience.