Hi there,

I am nurse and work in a busy emergency department (a little extra busy at the moment!). I also handle a lot of the eduction for new nurses.

The background: Medication administration can be super stressful for new and old nurses (and other healthcare providers). This is specifically an issue in the ER where you have to be comfortable drawing up meds on the fly in emergency situations, such as when a patient is coding. This is extremely stressful and the risk of medication errors is high.

Possible solution: I'd love to create a very simple app based game that simulates drawing up medications in this type of high-stress scenario. It would allow nurses to practice high stress medication administration to gain confidence for the real thing.

My questions: Is building a game like this something I could do on my own? (I don't have any knowledge of game development or coding). What are the big picture steps in building a game such as this? Any suggestions/thoughts on how to approach this idea?

…Or is this just a situation of nice idea, but waaay to hard to implement? Thanks for your thoughts!

EmergencyRN said:
patient is coding

Please let your patients code - for some, it helps hem relax.

On a more serious note; yes, you can absolutely do that. I don't know exactly what drawing up medications mean - is it mixing fluids to a certain ratio, or picking pills from a drawer? In either case, it doesn't sound very complicated, from a programming perspective. Have you tried working with any sort of automation or scripting? From a completely blank slate, it's is some work,
but if you had some experience it may be much easier. It's also very likely you could get some help developing your application here on gamedev.net.

I'm hesitant to ask you to look at tutorial videos, programming languages and game engines though, because I don't know what the player would do in your game.

Is it text-based, does it have buttons, lists, graphics? Is there a time component to “succeeding” in administering medications?
If you tell us a little more, I'm sure we could put you on the right path!

Thanks for the response! also I am dying! LOL. Well, I guess I set myself up for that one. Of course, I meant cardiac arrest.

I have lots of ideas of how this could be conceptualized… but whatever is the most simple would be best. Platformer? So it would go something like this:

1. You are presented with a text to set the scene (possibly from an ambulance report) - “Inbound with a 43 year old in cardiac arrest” or “6 year old having a seizure” or “18 year old overdose on Tylenol”

2. Timer starts and you have 30 seconds to draw up the medication. There are 6 attributes to correctly draw up a medication (patient, drug, dose, route, time, and indication).

3. You will then be presented with each of these 6 categories (patient, drug, dose, route, time, indication). As click you click through each category you will be presented with a list of options from which you will have to select the correct answer. So, for example on the Tylenol overdose, under the category “drug” you might see the options narcan, mucomyst, atropine, and glucagon. (correct answer is mucomyst)

At anypoint you could consult the drug book (or ask for a hint?) for help, but this will of course take away from your time.

4. Once you have made your selections hit the administer button. If your selections are correct the patient lives, if not they die. Also, if the timer runs out they die.

This is the basic idea, but could have more layers. It could have an ongoing personalized medication error rating, competitive score boards and such. Simple is great, but it would be nice to have some graphics to be more engaging (pixel style art of different patients, nurses, medication table, animations showing the ambulance parking, the med being administered, and patient living/dying).

I'd would love to partner up on this/ have a mentor if that exists in this community.

I'm pretty much a blank slate when it comes to my knowledge base, but willing to put in the effort if this is acheivable. I was looking at some game development platforms (buildbox, Godot), but feel like I don't even know enough to make that choice.

EmergencyRN said:

I'm pretty much a blank slate when it comes to my knowledge base, but willing to put in the effort if this is acheivable. I was looking at some game development platforms (buildbox, Godot), but feel like I don't even know enough to make that choice.

I'm sure GameMaker Studio 2 as Rutin recommended is great. As for working with game making applications, I only worked with Klik & Play, Games Factory and most recently Godot (which you've also stumbled upon). Other than that I just program them ground-up.

Godot however is something I can recommend; the user interface is very clean, and there are so many (decent) resources out there, on how to make something basic.

If you're not partnering up with someone else, you have a big adventure ahead of you, and you should just get started using the game engine of choice to get a bit of training. In your breaks, I can recommend looking and playing around with creating some simple sprites.

Eventually you'll get to the point where you start a new project (let's call it project no. 100, just for the sake of realism).
You're equipped with the GM2, BuildBox or Godot-knowhow to make your game. Already ahead of this point, it's important to not just describe the concept like you just did (sounds excellent btw - I'd play that) You need a little design document.

EmergencyRN said:

I have lots of ideas of how this could be conceptualized… but whatever is the most simple would be best. Platformer?

Let's start out without any characters moving around; your game is a series of popups and perhaps a few images showing hypos, conditions or patients.

Draw out game screens on a piece of paper, don't just describe them: There's a big, fat mission title in the center:
Inbound with a 43 year old in cardiac arrest. In the corner, perhaps you have a series of more exact conditions that the player needs to fulfill, a clock in another corner, and perhaps a number of patient sillhouettes showing how many missions there are left. You describe how long the title is shown, and that the white background fades into two columns; a patient description, with a cute little image of a patient and their issues, and a draw -column on the right. At the bottom a little bar shrinks - that's the total time left for that patient, etc.

Having good drawings and descriptions of what your product is going to behave like is essential for the development phase. Should you want to reach out for help, this is something that really helps your team put your game together.

EmergencyRN said:

I'd would love to partner up on this/ have a mentor if that exists in this community.

My gamedev.net is actually a bit rusty. I think this is the place to ask (but mature your concept a little first)
https://gamedev.net/forums/forum/29-hobby-project-classifieds/

“Cook, serve, delicious” is perfect! - Thanks Rutin. That's basically what I'm trying to do; fill a recipe and if you get it right the patient lives. I used the term “platformer," more out of a lack of understanding. This is definitely more simulation based.

I can definitely make a design document!

Do you guys have any recommendations on how to find someone to work with? (wouldn't really be able to pay anyone)

I think I'm going to get started with Godot as SuperVGA recommends (and it's free!) to start learning the process.

Oh! just saw your link VGA, thanks!