Quest, M.D.

In a nutshell, we’re making a video game that teaches real clinical medicine to the players. The idea behind it is that people are willing to learn and remember even the most random and obscure information, as long as they’re being entertained. Educational games have been around for a long time, but the vast majority of them suffer from the fact that they’re so focused on delivering the information that they forget to be fun. The truth is that even “non-educational” games are still teaching, even if the information doesn’t have much value outside the game. (Most people can name a lot more Pokémon than they can name antibiotics.) So, our primary goal was to make our game fun and inviting. The player can explore a cartoonish, 3D environment, filled with diverse characters. Some of these characters will be ill, and when the player encounters them, he or she will have to do some puzzle-solving in order to correctly diagnose and treat. Cases will start off easy, but will gradually increase in difficulty as the player gets more comfortable. We have a much grander vision in our heads as to how this could be fully fleshed out (including interesting characters, challenging puzzles, immersive story elements, etc.), but we’ll obviously be very limited in the 36-hour version. The idea here is to just create a basic prototype in order see what’s fun and effective.