Leukaemia Patient Helps Create Chemotherapy Game

jasoncart writes "Whilst trying to visualize his illness, leukaemia patient and gamer Ben Duskin came up with a concept for a video game, according to a story on Ferrago. With the help of Eric Johnston and his employers LucasArts, the PC game, whose object is '...to destroy all mutated cells and to collect the seven shields which provide protection from common side effects of chemotherapy', is now in beta and available for free download from the Make A Wish Foundation - there are also screenshots available on Ferrago. The best news of all is that Ben is now in remission."

Comments

Postive thinking.

[BigZaphod]

There's a lot to be said for the power of the mind. By taking on this project he could very well have almost willed himself to get better. I'm not saying it cured him (I'm sure modern medicine did much of the work), but it could have been a factor in the remission. He gave himself a new purpose--and a very cool one, at that. Very symbolic. It could be that his mind/soul did the rest.

Re:Postive thinking.

[Night Goat]

Or, it could be that modern medicine cured him. I guess we'll never know. While we're speculating, maybe he psychically zapped the cancer cells. Hey, maybe a cleric blessed him and that fixed it. Who knows.
Maybe he just thought up a video game idea that he ripped off from Innerspace.

Re:Postive thinking.

[Mahrtian]

For the record, I am currently two years in remission from Hodgkins Lymphoma.

When going through chemotherapy, especially for Lymphoma/Leukemia from what I understand, your body is in shambles. There are some drugs that help boost you white/red blood cell
counts Neupogen/Epogen (sp?) and others that help with the nausea, but besides that there is very little that modern medicine can do. So some Oncologists actually recommend visualizing the cancer cells being destroyed by the drugs/immune system. They claim that the positive attitude can stimulate your body's recovery system. This game is a perfect way of doing that. Not to mention, it keeps your mind busy on something else than the pain.

This is not to knock modern medicine, without which I wouldn't be here.

Games Improving Mental Fitness

[MiceHead]

I always tell people about the customer who e-mailed us, telling us that our first game as an independent studio was helping her with a neurological condition. An excerpt from her letter:

I have rather severe neurologic problems in some areas of my brain and your game is helping me to regain some use of those areas that are "resting."

It was a great thing to hear.
______________________________
Trivia: The tagline under EA's M.U.L.E describes it as "a game in which up to four players attempt to settle a distant planet with the so-called help of a mule-like machine they all learn to hate.

Quick!

[Idolminds]

Someone get terribly ill and wish for Sam & Max 2!

Make A Wish Fondation

[thedanc]

This is just one more example of the amazing work of the Make A Wish Foundation. These people, who obviously have a worthwhile cause, are amazing at their jobs. In my opinion, the most effective way to help fight cancer (for future victims) is to fund research. But given where we're at now, the only way to help current patients to make them happy. And happiness is the entire point of Make A Wish.

I've personally done fundraising for my local chapter (which is on the opposite coast), and I was inspired to do so after actually being a part of a wish. I'd suggest doing the same to anyone.

While you're not off donating to eff, be sure to donate to Make A Wish. You're literally giving happiness.

downloaded it last night

[DourSalmon]

I think it may be a little too hard for some kids. (particularly those who may be undergoing some fairly fierce treatments) The mutated cells expand fairly quickly in the whole "game of life" style, and the end boss in each level constantly forces more out. It's a good idea for this type of thing, but it moves really pretty quickly. It took me quite some time to beat the game, and despite the fact that you couldn't actually lose all your health or run out of ammo (when you get low on either there's a beeping that's just annoying, encouraging you to collect more) the game did get pretty frustrating. The weapons used don't seem to do a lot of damage, and the cells mutate a little to quickly. There are also a few control issues. you can adjust the camera (you need to, frequently) but that forces you to stop attacking and allows the cells to flow in again, taking away your hard work. The avatar rides on a hoverboard that you control with the dir buttons. the problem is that this thing ends up going really really fast, whichis tricky when you're trying to strafe to kill off some cells. all the edges of the levels are half-pipes, which is a cool idea, but it would have been cooler if your skating actually led to bonuses, such as more powerful weapons, extra items, etc. by having places reachable by jumping off the half-pipe a la THPS. All in all, it might be a little too frustrating for the sick kids, but also kinda boring at the same time. It taught me one thing: cancer is annoying. don't get it, it ain't worth it.

Re:downloaded it last night

[jasoncart]

I'm not sure the point of this is to create a especially impressive game - nor, to start with, create one thats very playable. Remember its only in beta, these things can be tweaked.

The key is for the kid (Ben) to be able to say that he made a computer game... which he can now do.

Saying that - I do agree, it is too darned difficult at the moment.

Re:downloaded it last night

[Smidge204]

To be fair, there isn't a cure for cancer yet... so maybe it's not hard enough? :)

Anyone know if the various weapons represent specific types of treatments? Obviously the "bosses" represent illnesses, so it would only make sense...
=Smidge=

Hope it helps

[R2.0]

I don't know about the curative powers of positive thinking, but it can't hurt anything to have a patient blasting away cancer cells yelling "Die, muthafucka, die!!."

The developers who said no

[superultra]

What I'd like to know are the identities of the companies who said to the Make a Wish Foundation that "this venture was nearly impossible without taking several years and literally millions of dollars." Correspondingly, I think they'd receive at least one nasty consumer letter from myself, and I think from others as well. Apparently, the companies the foundation asked either haven't seen any of the indie games that have come out in the last few years, or just blatantly lied to the foundation to avoid making a committment. I'm inclined to think the latter over the former. Heartless bastards. Could someone tell me why I keep giving them money?

On the other hand, kudos to Lucasarts, who while evil for canning Sam and Max 2, like Vader obviously still have some good in them somewhere.

Game Over

[Seft]

So you give this to a little kid about to undergo chemo.

Five minutes later 'Game over, your patient is dead'

Well, I'm sure that cheered them up :/

Re:Game Over

[ericjohnston]

Hi there, Actually, the player doesn't lose or die, he keeps fighting, as Ben did. Talk about a game design challenge... Cheers, - ej

Just played the game

[herrvinny]

I just played the game on a U of Wisc @ Madison public computer. AMD Athlon 1.39 GHz processor, 256 MB ram. It works fine. I played the first level, so here are some quick tips:

• On my Windows computer, the four arrow keys were direction, and spacebar fired the character's weapon.
• Attack the red circle things on the ground. I didn't realize this at first and simply ran over them, and my character got hurt.
• There are powerups floating around in bubbles. I believe they only contain weapons powerups, but I can't be sure.
• In addition, at each corner of the field, there are powerups that don't go away. Pop into those when you're feeling weak.
• When you fire your weapon, a green meter with a symbol of a spoon in a bowl goes down. I think that what you're actually doing using is firing chicken soup at the enemy. It's an interesting metaphor for a weapon.
• The most powerful weapon, IMHO, is the weapon with a rocket symbol. It's an area attack weapon, where you fire a single rocket, and when that rocket hits a red cell area (grouping of red circles going up and down) the rocket breaks into multiple smaller rockets and they all break into different directions. Think MIRV (Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles, for you non-military people).

I would be really interesting in the technical specs of the program. Did they develop their own physics engine for the game, or did they borrow LucasArts code? If the physics and 3D stuff had to be developed from scratch, then that could very easily account for the months spent in development. Some things I'd like to see are:

• A bomb type weapon, where one blast totally annihilates all targets within a given radius from the bomb detonation. Perhaps the metaphor of chemotherapy would work here?
• Some kind of salt-the-earth weapon, where once you clear an area, you pour some kind of antibiotic to make sure no enemy ever grows there again.
• Moderate the speed. You can go really fast in the game without trying real hard, but that's a problem, since you need to slow down and blast the enemy. Some kind of speed maximum would be terrific.
• Play from the vantage point of the character. That might be a little bit difficult to program (I don't know much about 3d graphics programming) but it would be cool.

It's a fun game. No doubt about that. Graphics are nice, physics are good, based on a solid principal, etc.