For the fourth year in a row, the Hilltop’s game design department is creating a mobile game for a good cause.
Every year, senior game design majors complete a capstone project, which involves working on an original game the entire year to be released at the end of the spring semester.
“We’ve been doing serious games for some time,” Monica McGill, assistant professor of game design, said. “The first three [games] were for diabetes research, and this one is for the Sjögren’s Foundation.”
Sjögren’s disease is an auto-immune disorder that attacks the body’s moisture-producing glands, according to Steven Taylor, chief executive director of the Sjögren’s Foundation. Symptoms include dry eyes, dry mouth and joint pain. If left untreated, it can cause major organ failure.
“[Nobody has reached out to Sjögren’s] for a game design project like this before,” Taylor said. “We’ve had programs in nursing and dental hygienists to do educational programs with us but never a creative project.”
McGill said she decided to contact the Sjögren’s Foundation about a game because her daughter was diagnosed with the disease at a very young age.
“It’s not a very well-known disease, and nine out of 10 people affected are women,” McGill said. “The foundation tries to raise awareness about Sjögren’s [disease], so I thought we could do that in a game very easily.”
The goal of partnering with Sjögren’s Foundation was to help raise awareness for the disease, according to McGill.
“I was excited, the foundation was excited,” Taylor said. “Our board of directors had talked about having some kind of game for Sjögren’s awareness and then when Monica called, it was perfect timing. Having a game for Sjögren’s that is so unique is such a great partnership.”
The game in production will be a geared toward casual puzzle gamers, according to McGill. It will feature more than 85 levels across at least five different worlds.
“[This year’s game] is similar in nature to last year’s game, ‘Coco’s Cove’,” McGill said. “It’s very fun. It features a cute little monkey named Coco who has Type 2 Diabetes, but you can enjoy the game and never know Coco has [the disease] unless you go to the about page. The goal is to teach people without shoving it in their faces. Usually, educational and serious games are so, so boring, but we want to take the really fun elements and aspects of games and give it meaning.”
While the game design program has a non-disclosure agreement in place for the current game, students will be able to access it on mobile and possibly on a Facebook platform when it is released spring semester.
“We’re not saying too much, but we have a good concept,” McGill said. “We want to keep it under wraps until it’s released.”
