Starshine
A rehabilitation game for hand locomotion injury patients
Full Name: Starshine
Made By: ETH Institute of Neuroinformatics & ZHdK University of the Arts
Made For: Childrens Hospital Affoltern
Plattforms: PC
Roles in Project: Game Concept, Game Design, Game Graphics
Idea
Background
in 2008 a research group of ETH’s institute of Neuroinformatics developed a hand controller to accurately measure the hands position and rotation in the room. In coorperation with ZHdK, students were assigned to develop game concepts for the the patients of the children’s hospital in Affoltern a.A which would help their daily exercises. The Starshine concept was the one concept of the class that eventually was funded to be made into a full game once the study course has ended.
Gameplay:
Starshine has 4 differently colored types of levels. In each level type, tired tiny stars are bouncing out in hope to getting to the clouds to rest. Two geometric shapes in each level are controlled by specific hand movements, horizontal, vertical, turning or squeezing, to actually get the tiny stars there, all the while they joyfully bounce around the place. the type of level is seemingly chosen at random from a wheel at the start.
Before the game, every kid will create their own avatar out of an avatar generator. This also acts as a profile. Unbeknown to the patient, the therapist has full control over the difficulty, motion required and even chance of showing up when it comes to level types. That way they can control a full rehabilitation program individually for each patient.
Design:
First and foremost, the main target audience for the design was the kids. The colorful aesthetics, quirky stars and bouncy audio is generally just supposed to make the life in the hospital a bit better. However, extra care was also taken that the game would be a benefit for therapists as well. The game is fully customizable for each patient and records a patients history, which can be exported to excel. It was the last feature that made the therapists incredibly excited about the program in general, since it suddenly gave insights on a patients history, without the need of using a new software to analyze it.
Impressions
