Designing for viral infection awareness through PLAYMUTATION

Abstract

Media trust has been one of the greatest societal challenges given viral outbreaks within a new media landscape, amplifying fear-inducing measures, and information avoidance. Although some research has been carried out on the media (mis)use to inform about viral infections, there has been general lack of information on media design to create this awareness. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to establishing practices to develop virus epidemiologic-themed digital games to raise awareness for viral infections in young adults. Using a qualitative development research involving twenty-six informed individuals in microbiology and game design and thirty-four young adults aged between 18 and 35, a set of guidelines within the project PLAYMUTATION were proposed: (i) Validating the information on the transmission of the virus, measures to prevent and treat viral infections as a topic; (ii) Virtual modelling of the viruses physical interactions; and (iii) Showing implicitly the bio-psycho-social consequences, among others. This paper advances the knowledge of connectivity and creativity in times of conflict by simulating game-based scenarios that may prepare players for acting upon future health crises and outbreaks.