A serious game is a physical or digital game which has a purpose other than pure entertainment.
L'utilisation du jeu permet de renforcer l'implication des patients. La présence d'éléments d'humour et le contexte ludique entraîne une adhésion quasi-immédiate. Par ailleurs, le fait de proposer un enjeu suscite un engagement plus fort.
Practising without stress and in a caring environment allows the patient to gain confidence. It’s one of the main sources of therapeutic education, particularly for healthcare routines. It is also possible to practise the theoretical aspects of healthcare protocols by offering ‘case studies’ in the form of games.
Les serious games permettent aux joueurs de tester et expérimenter par lui-même. Il a ainsi l'opportunité de découvrir des notions et de construire des connaissances pérennes. En effet, on retient mieux ce que l'on fait soi-même.
Games are an excellent multi-sensory tool that draw on multiple skills and allow acquired knowledge to be well anchored. Stimulating imagination and cooperation creates unique experiences.
Games offer the opportunity to use characters which allow a phenomenon called distancing to take place. The patient does not speak about themselves and they can speak more freely and express themselves on subjects that they might not dare to speak about directly.
An education serious game only fulfills its teaching mission when used in a precise framework. The framework allows the player to be supported while building their knowledge. It is generally based on an exchange with a resource person who has the required knowledge and is able to teach it. Here, the framework is the therapeutic education programme implemented by healthcare teams.
The fact that a serious game is used in a non-educational setting does not prevent it from being used if the game mechanics have been well constructed. In this case, the serious game becomes an entertainment game with a health theme. New skills are not acquired but players can have fun and discuss a theme that is already familiar.
Our philosophy is to design games in a way that they will be self-supporting and can be used as a fun game in a family context. This means that people have a good time while conveying the diabetes awareness messages which are so important to us.
This is why we make our games accessible to the general public as well as to healthcare teams.