A video game for children with Cystic Fibrosis by AccessAble Games

Help us create a video game for children with cystic fibrosis to maximize their pulmonary functions.

 Enlace a descripción en Castellano 
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.

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.

Tipping Point Goal: $29,000

Total Funding Goal: $40,000

Why we need your contribution
Contributions will mainly be used for covering costs of human resources: a game designer, a children’s educator and pedagogue, a game programmer and a graphic designer.


Tipping Point Goal: 29,000 $
If we reach the Tipping Point Goal, we will be able to develop the game complete with all content as seen in this description, including four different minigames.

Total Funding Goal: 40,000 $
If we reach the Total Funding Goal, the game will include eight different minigames for more in-game diversity and overall playtime.

The development team
The human team of AccessAble Games / The Game Kitchen is made up by experienced professionals whose video game projects give prominent importance to social implication and accessibility for people with disabilities.
Some of our previous work:

VIDEO AQUI

You can find more here: www.accessablegames.com/ourwork.html

If you pledge $10 or more, we will send a gift token by email to a person of your choice letting them know you supported this project in their behalf.

 But don't forget to check out all the rewards!

Follow this project on our:
Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/x90G5
Twitter: http://twitter.com/accessablegames
Facebook: http://facebook.com/accessablegames

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