First week of internship at Fontys GDT
This week I've finally started my internship as a game programmer at the Fontys University of Applied Science, at the department of Game Design and Technology. Specifically, being part of the research project called Games[4Therapy] (G4T). I spoke about this project earlier this year, because I was part of the team developing another game for the Games[4Therapy] project, the game called StoryLine. We (Da Baconizers) are still developing this game in our spare time, by the way!
Anyway, since this week I'm officially part of the G4T project team and I'm so excited! The full project team consists of six members, devided in two teams. Each team has a game designer and a programmer, both are graduates. The last two members are a game artist from the Sint Lucas school (Eindhoven) and an Applied Psychology graduate from the Fontys. They will be part of both teams. So we've finally got a project in which we have a real artist and someone who actually knows a lot about psychology, which is great!
With this team of awesomeness we'll be working on two games, both of them focussing on providing playful interventions for our target users: (1) youth with externalising dificulties who are currently in therapy and (2) their therapists. These difficulties are often associated with a challenging temperament and oppositional behavior. Externalizing difficulties can be the result of many underlying behavior problems; for example: hyperactivity, autism and drug use.
The first game (which is actually more of a tool) will be focussing on providing the players a way to recreate scenarios in which their behaviour created a rather undesirable situation, like 'I hit someone in the face because he bumbed into me'. Not very subtle, right?
Exactly, and that's why the second game will be focussing on making the player analyse what happened and then having the player explore what other possible reactions he could have considered, that would change the face-punching outcome of the situation. The game will guide the player into the other possible reactions, both positive and negative, to give the player insight in their possibilities in certain situations.
In this first week we've focussed mostly on getting information regarding Games4Therapy and of course our target audience. Then, the real deal started: brainstorming, concepting and paper prototyping until our hands bled inspiration. We've experimented with a lot of different directions and concept, but we've kind of gotten our eyes onto the mathematical beauty of the hexagon shape and the game design possibilities it lends, like you can see in the picture above.
I'll try to write as much as possible, but since we're swamped in work, it can take some time to write the next blog post, but be sure to stay tuned for more juicy therapy game design experiences!