Making of: circolino

[Freemind]

Introduction. Circolino is a bundle of five serious games and selfbuilt input devices todo play games while making a range of diferent physiotherapy exercises.

Every time the children play circolino, the system logs very important información for the therapy and then sabes it in a well formatted csv file todo be used for analyzing the progress of every single patient.

This serious game was made for the children rehabilitation center of afoltern (switzerland) and is adapted todo children under 12 years old with motor function problems.

Playing is something that the human races has always done. For this reason playing games is a very important part in the life of every of us. Games are part of our culture as well, regardless of which game is being played.

Sadly, not all people are able todo play video games.

There are people that have problems with motor functions and most of these are children. Normally, physiotherapy involves helping children achieve their gross motor functions and enabling them todo develop their Physical independence. The physiotherapists assess, design and carry out stimulation exercises for children todo improve their Physical skills, and todo prevent further deformities and minimize the effects of disability.

Helping children with physiotherapy is quite diferent than helping adults, from an anatomical, physiológical and psychológical point of view. To treat children efectively all these issues ned todo be considered.

My first step todo create this game was todo analyze, together with a physiotherapist, the diferent exercises that these children executed every day.

After that i collectedall the important información and wrote the gd (game de-sign document).
While writing it, y paid attention todo all aspects of the game with the eyes of these chil-dren. It wasnt as easy as we can imagine. Most of these children have motor problems not only because the muscles are not working well, but a los because the brain has some problems, todo.

For this reason, y wanted todo create minigames that help todo train the diferent parts of the brain and not only the muscles: they must work together.

The minigames of circolino train these parts of the brain that are used todo memorize, todo calculate, todo recognize, todo se and todo hear: parietal lobe, frontal lobe, temporal lobe and occipital lobe.

The self built input devices train the motor functions while playing these minigames. Ive created something that has this wi style thing going on and giving a whole diferent gaming experience than just ordinary keyboard or mouse.

Most of these children cant hold any controller in their hands, just because they have problems todo move it, todo. My objective was todo create something todo wear, not so heavy, easy todo install and todo use. To use these input devices we ned todo just plug-in the usb cable and we are ready todo play: no extra drivers todo install and compatible with most operating systems.

Last but not least: the children love circolino.

I was very happy todo use my knowledge todo create a game that is focusing on a target audience that is not always considered in the game industry.

To create circolino i used Blender todo create the game and the 3d assets (environment, characters and items), Python for scripting it, Gimp for the textures, Inkscape for the 2d game elements, Audacity for the sounds and the music, and Scribus for the documentation.

Rosario Azzarello.

Porfolio: http://www.gamedesign, ch.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrqbjbbicfq.