Amazing Apps: Dr. Sara - Disease Detective

 Dr. Spencer Striker, an Associate Professor of Digital Media Design at Northwestern University in Qatar, has released a mobile game that offers a fresh approach to education. Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is a fully interactive digital learning mobile game about epidemiology. 

Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is a visual novel mobile game featuring the World's Greatest Epidemiologist, investigating and solving outbreaks around the globe. Dr. Striker designed and developed the game to get kids interacting and having fun while developing problem-solving skills, logic skills, increasing their scientific vocabulary, and learning more about pandemics.

 

Spencer Striker's new mobile game features Dr. Sara, a brave, brilliant disease detective taking on severe and perplexing outbreaks in hotspots around the world. In this character-driven simulation of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) detective work, students search for the index case, racing against time to find clues to a cure.

 

While playing Dr. Sara, students take on the role of Dr. Sara in the character-driven simulation of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) detective work - investigating and solving outbreaks around the globe.

 

Dr. Sara is a brave, brilliant disease detective taking on severe and perplexing outbreaks in hotspots around the world, searching for the index case, connecting seemingly disparate dots, confronting fear, both personal and societal-all the while racing against time to find clues to a cure. Like a cross between Lara Croft and Dr. House MD: Dr. Sara is equally at home in the lab, in the field, and on duty in the emergency room.

 

Fun, immersive gameplay features include visual novel style interactive dialogue, innovative character design, minigames about social distancing, hidden object investigation, eureka style logic puzzles, collectible scientific vocabulary, game-based learning techniques, cinematics, visual effects, original music and immersive sound design.

I had a chance to interview Dr. Striker to learn more.

Why was this game created?

Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is a visual novel mobile game featuring the World's Greatest Epidemiologist, investigating and solving outbreaks around the globe, designed and developed by digital media design professor, Spencer Striker, at Northwestern Qatar. Our goal is that the game-based learning design of Dr. Sara: Disease Detective will capture student curiosity and propel them to develop a lifelong interest in science, medicine, technology, and public health. Our game-based learning approach to science education is intended to recapture the authentic fun of scientific exploration and discovery. It is our goal that this game will increase student interest and engagement with science and inspire them to go further into this exciting field.

What educational benefits can this app provide?

As Raph Koster writes in A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004): “That’s what games are...teachers. Fun is just another word for learning.” Building on a rich tradition of games and learning research and inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, our new mobile game, Dr. Sara: Disease Detective (funded by a competitive grant from the HBKU Innovation Center), immerses and engages students through role-playing, meaningful choice, and multimodal interaction design. Students take on the role of the world’s greatest disease detective, in a character-driven simulation of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) detective work—investigating and solving outbreaks around the globe. Dr. Sara is a brave, brilliant disease detective taking on severe and perplexing outbreaks in hotspots around the world—searching for the index case, connecting seemingly disparate dots, confronting fear, both personal and societal—all the while racing against time to find clues to a cure. Like a cross between Lara Croft and Dr. House MD, Dr. Sara is equally at home in the lab, in the field, and on duty in the emergency room. Dr. Sara: Disease Detective features high stakes time pressure, compelling characters, narrative design, challenging puzzles, and the natural gameplay dynamics that emerge from network science and contact tracing. Fun, intuitive gameplay features include: visual novel style interactive dialogue; original character design; mini-games about social distancing; hidden object investigation; Cluedo style logic puzzles; collectible scientific vocabulary; game-based learning techniques; cinematics, visual effects, exciting music and immersive sound design.

Why is it important for people to learn about factors that can influence the spread of a disease?

Within the framework of a mobile game experience, the student assumes the role of a "disease detective" (EIS officer) working to determine and isolate the pathways of severe contagions, as they work through social networks and interconnections of people's travel histories. In the role of an EIS officer, the student seeks to: 1. isolate and contain the spread; 2. locate the origin of the pathogen; and 3. analyze and determine the nature of the pathogen. Along the

way, the student encounters a variety of obstacles dealing with the investigative aspect of reverse modeling the contagion’s spread, as well as various political, personal, and sociocultural considerations they must traverse. Through hands-on simulation of the network science and detective work that Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers (EIS) do on the front lines combating disease, this immersive mobile game teaches students the fundamentals of how infectious diseases spread and how they can be isolated and stopped. Students engage with the core concepts of fomites, vectors, index patient, R0, and contact tracing—and their relevance to stopping the spread of contagions. By introducing students to a mobile game concerning disease detective work, we believe the game stimulates an interest in science, technology, medicine, public health, and other related fields.  The problem-solving aspect of the mobile game experience builds capacity in research and human development in order to better respond to emergent health crises in the future.

Dr. Sara: Disease Detective has been nominated for Best Educational App at the 2021 Reimagine Education Awards.

Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is available on the Apple Store and Google Play. For more information, visit https://www.spencerstriker.com/work/disease-detective and follow Dr. Sara on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

 

 

About Spencer Striker

Spencer Striker, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Digital Media Design at Northwestern Qatar. Striker's work centers on interaction design, mobile media, digital media and learning, video games, and entrepreneurship. He is the creator of History Adventures, World of Characters—a fully interactive digital learning series that presents a fresh approach to history education—and Dr. Sara: Disease Detective, a mobile game about epidemiology. Striker holds a Ph.D. in Digital Media from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, a Master's in New Media Production from Indiana University at Bloomington, and undergraduate degrees in Radio-TV-Film (B.S.) and History (B.A.) from the University of Texas at Austin.