Puzzlitekt is a cooperative puzzle game, in which players have to cooperate in order to uncover an image using self-made puzzle pieces. The game is targeted towards elderly peopel and their families.
Video game development, Unity engine, C#, communication, dementia
The goal was to develop a video game which encourages the players to communicate with each other. The game should be challenging and at the same time simple enough, so that elderly people with dementia or people who have not had contact with modern devices and games can understand the game flow and are not overwhelmed or intimidated.
As different forms of dementia progress in elderly people, communication may become increasingly harder. They may start talking about the same thing repeatedly or, in further stages, may not even be able to express themselves properly anymore.
The Myosotis games offer a way bridge the communication gap between the elderly and their families. It allows these two groups to have one common focus point they can talk about. It often does so by incorporating images, which the elderly people can recognize, so that a conversation can take place.
Because these games are connected to the "myosotis database", which contains family pictures, the games can be customized and personalized.
The goal of our project was to develop a new game for the Myosotis universe. Our focus was to make the loaded image the centrepoint of the game. The players should activly interact with the image throughout the game, so that players can communicate for the sake of cooperation, as well as have a conversation about the image without hindering the flow of the game.
Another focus was to accomodate the needs of the elderly people, so accessibility is important.
In Puzzlitekt, the players have to uncover an image by creating their own puzzle pieces. To do this, the two players must take on one of two roles.
The first player takes on the role of the "Architect". Their job is to sketch a puzzlepiece using the blueprint on the left side. Once happy with the selection, they can start building the puzzle piece.
The puzzle piece is then sent over to the second player, the "Painter". Their job is to insert the puzzle piece in a fitting position, in order to finish their "painting".
To raise the difficulty of this task, there are multiple restrictions which can be set on both the architects and the painter's side. For example, the architect can be forced to using a minimum or maximum amount of tiles per piece, or prohibit them from creating the same piece twice in a row
Once the entire images is filled out, or no more valid pieces can be created due to the restrictions, the game is finished, and a new round can be started.
