Enlace
a descripción en Castellano
>> UPDATE 1: Wy My Carnival will be free? <<
>> UPDATE 2: Microphone as control device <<
>> UPDATE 3: Share My Carnival with this colourful poster! <<
>> UPDATE 4: The Pedagogic Intention behind My Carnival <<
>> UPDATE 5: Last days to make it happen! <<
My Carnival
The goal of the project is to create a video game that children with cystic fibrosis can play at home as much as they like, supplementing their daily physical therapy with a more enjoyable activity. The game will increase their motivation
and also help them maintain and/or maximize their pulmonary functions, and therefore their quality of life.
The game will be available for Windows and will be published online
for free.
Who is it intended for?
The game is intended for children between 3 and 6 years old, our primary target.
Doctors and specialized physiotherapists consider it is extremely important that children of early age learn to control their respiratory function as an essential part of the treatment techniques as well as for the optimization of aerosol, or inhalation,
therapy. My Carnival will be the first video game for children with cystic fibrosis intended for
home use.
Main game mechanics
It requires the use of a standard microphone and two basic mechanisms:
· Prolonged slow expiration at mid-capacity lung volume (blowing out).
· Low, mid and high air volume inspiration (breathing in).
Benefits
The primary benefit of these mechanisms is to make players work with different airflow volume and pulmonary rhythms in a
fun environment, detached from the daily routines of respiratory physiotherapy. That is very important for learning some of the most widely used physiotherapy techniques.
Controlling device
The game is controlled via a standard PC microphone.
Regular microphones are cheap and easy to find, and under the supervision of an adult, the data coming out of the game would be more than enough to make children learn to control their inspiratory and expiratory cycles.
For improved performance and ease of use, we recommend attaching the microphone to a simple holding chamber or spacer. You can easily find it in your local pharmacy for about €6.
These chambers are designed for children’s use and are completely detachable for cleaning. The microphone can be isolated with some thin, disposable material.
Check out our rewards for supporting this project, you can pledge for a
special delivery kit including a holding chamber plus a suitable sized microphone.
Motivation
“My Carnival” will be set in a fun fair with booths giving access to different
minigames. In one minigame, for instance, players control a water stream to fill up coloured water balloons only with their breathing.
Also:
· Lights of some of the booths will be turned off overnight. To turn them on, you have to play them again.
· The fair grows bigger and more colourful the more you play the game.
· Real-life season changes affect the fair’s appearance.
· At any time, you can print out an overview of the carnival in its current state.
Balloons minigame concept art:
User profiles and game data
The game records individual data that let you analyse precisely how gameplay is affecting a particular player’s daily physiotherapy sessions.
Configuration settings
The game includes many options to adjust it to the needs and taste of each player:
· Choose the minigames that players find more motivating.
· Playtime warning message.
· Difficulty level.
· Game speed.
Languages
Spanish and English.
Andalusian Association of Cystic Fibrosis
For this project, we have worked along with the “Asociación Andaluza de Fibrosis Quística” (Andalusian Association of Cystic Fibrosis, Spain), who will continue working with us until the end of the project.
