Game I developed for MS patients

[Content removed - please contact the web team for permission to post.]

I can’t download the webplayer onto my iPad. Will have a look next time I use the desktop.

I’m sorry to sound negative, but although I like playing games, I’m instantly put off by the whole concept of one “for MS patients”, without even feeling drawn to try it. I also wonder if you’re aware what an extremely diverse illness MS is, and that by no means everyone will be experiencing problems with hand movements or cognition? A game “for MSers” seems to make the assumption everyone’s similarly affected. I’m sorry if I’m teaching you to suck eggs, as I’ve no idea if your master’s program is medicine, or games design. But two people with MS can be so differently affected as not to appear to have the same illness! So you might want to re-target the game to people who have problems with hand movement or cognition from ANY cause (not just MS), or limit it to people with MS who have diagnosed issues with hand movement or cognition, because asking just anyone with MS to play won’t guarantee they have this - in which case you might as well try it on anyone. Tina

Hi Tina,

Thank you for your feedback.

I understand that not everyone likes the idea of treatments by games but serious games and specially for medical conditions have proved to be positive according to various experimentations and research.

As I mentioned in the above description, the game is mainly for hand movement and cognition practice, as I am aware that there are many symptoms related to MS.

My concern here though is whether such a game would help in improving the cognitive abilities, the limb muscle control, or make the hand movements more harmonious etc.

Best,

Mona

I think you may have trouble in getting peeps to download things that they don’t know anything about.

Hi Mona,

I’m not sure if you’ve understood the point I was trying to make.

Simply asking for volunteers with MS will not help you to assess the effectiveness of your software in improving hand movements or cognition, because you will not know what proportion of your sample has those problems, or to what degree. “Having MS” does not mean the person is necessarily experiencing the difficulties your game sets out to help with, so it wouldn’t be a very meaningful test.

If I don’t suffer from “unharmonious hand movements”, whatever that means, then what would my playing the game enable you to conclude - if anything?

It doesn’t seem very scientific to me, if you can’t say whether the people “testing” have the problems it was designed to address. Simply being diagnosed with MS wouldn’t mean they do (or don’t).

Tina

Oh dear, Mona,

You have got a lot of things wrong.

Did you ask the webteam for permission to post this, or did you think that you could just join the forum and start asking for volunteers?
Which University? This is a big thing when it comes to credibility - without the information there is NO credibility.
Your request reads just like someone trying to propagate a virus.
One of your links did not work on my iMac - reporting “invalid address”.
You do not say which platform you are developing a game for.
You have not specified anything about the people you want to participate in your work. This alone makes it look like a poor undergraduate project rather than for a Masters.
The wording of your initial post does make it look like you are getting performance on a tracking task confused with a measure of cognitive ability. Ever heard of Fitz’ Law?

When all these thing are so vague, it would make me wonder how on earth you would be able to conduct any meaningful statistical analysis on any data you collect.

Geoff

TBH i played the game, not too bad for a uni project. Been along time since i dabbled in C++. You should lower the resolution so you can see the bugs better. I think you have your target audiance wrong, you should go for anyone with hand movement issues. Problems that could be made better by exercises. Maybe design a controller to help build hand movement, to go along with the game?

Anyway goodluck with the project,

Darren