I thank everyone for their help. All of this continues to give me inspiration and confidence to create a game!

Wertle Thanks for the info. It looks like that group has some good links to check out. It would be good to find some more groups based on this. Using creative names would make the more game fun...amlodisaur (amlodipine), Seroquertle (Seroquel/quetiapine), levothyroxizard (levothyroxine)...could be interesting

sved Those are some awesome game ideas! I had thought of some of those, but this gives me some inspiriation to mix it up within the game, to use the same drugs in different situations.

Pode These look like they could be very helpful. I'll have to take a closer look at them later. Thanks again.

— Yeah, I thought about that sort of direct correlation too..."A wild syphilis appeared! You used doxycycline, it's super effective!" It could be quite hilarious. I will have to consider the "less literal on the drug part," because I think you have a very good point. I would still like the information to be very relevant, so I don't know how much that will be achieved.

— I hadn't thought about using a card game system specifically as I don't play them really. But I suppose it is similar to something like Pokemon. I will have to investigate some more because that would provide a way to organize the information.

— Thank you for the great insight. I really appreciate it as it gives me a lot to chew on to be more intentional about certain aspects of the game.

In fact, you need to be a master of two field to do something good like that : be a true expert of your field (to provide the content to learn and divide it in understandable chunks, with a logical progression) and be a very good game designer. If not, you're going to provide a glorified multiple-choice questionnaire...

I definitely agree with this statement. I am actually studying for a certification that would make me more of an 'expert' in pharmacy, but being able to break it up with a logical progression and implement it in a game would be need to take it to the next level. But that is what I want to do, I want this monotonous information to be more learnable. The term "glorified multiple-choice" I will put on the top of my list of "Things That Don't Describe This Game!" I think it will be easy to fall into that, but I also think there should be a way to use information rather than just pick it out of a list.

Taking all of your other points into account I think I need to do a lot more game design. I will also need to do very small chunks in the development part to see what will be effective. Thank you!

Tom

Greetings,

I am new here, and to programming in general (started HTML ~2 weeks ago, JS ~1 week ago), but am a pharmacist by trade. While trying to keep up with the thousands of medications out there, I find myself losing ground on the large amount of information to know. This type of information is factual in nature (drugs have a mechanism of action, side effects, unique things). I want to build a game that helps commit this stuff to memory and help use the information in a practical way. I was actually inspired by playing Pokemon one day, how much I could remember various stats and types with the hundreds of Pokemon, but struggle more with drug information. I realize the types of information somewhat different, but I would like develop a process to make it similar. I have discussed this with a friend of mine and we have identified some features that might help a person remember information such as repetition, aural and visual cues, spatial arrangement, and rewards.

Recently coming across some game development tools like this has given me a lot more hope to get a small prototype quicker (like within the next year). I think I am going to start with Construct 2 as it seems to have great documentation, fully featured as a free product, and a helpful community.

Questions I would like to pose to you fine people:

1. What kind of game might accomplish my goal of commiting to memory many facts?

2. Would a game similar to Pokemon be buildable with Construct 2? What are the strengths and limitations of this program building such game? Any tutorials?

3. How well would this sort of game translate to touch screen platforms?

This probably spans several forum topics, but I am hoping to get the most feedback on design. I can post somewhere else if it is more appropriate. Thank you in advance for anything you can offer.

TC

PS. Below is a short concept I have written for the game. You can see the similarities to Pokemon.

The player needs to acquire the ability to use each drug. This would be done by somehow proving their knowledge of the basic information about each drug within a central hub area. After they have acquired the ability to use the drug, they can take the drug out into the world to use it for a variety of purposes. There would be 'lay' people to help with simpler questions, and health care professionals for more difficult questions of the drug. A less frequent, more challenging section would be patient case scenarios, in which it would simulate decisions that are made in the clinical setting. I am hoping that it would be scalable for use on a more basic level for pharmacy students, up to be more challenging for clinicians working towards certification (like myself). There could be different installments to cover cardiology, infectious disease, top 200 drugs by sales (often need to know for student exams), and such.