In the frame of the activities related to the educational game development, WISE ANGLE has been tasked with consulting key stakeholders so as to feed the participatory co-creation process aimed at designing the characters, the real-life situations they will face in the playing scenarios and the measures they will have to put in place to help stop the virus pandemic and contain its impacts.
In particular, the character that WISE ANGLE designed and presented is a healthcare manager, namely the director of a primary care center. Due to the continued limitations to travels and the impossibility to identify a suitable date for all the participants, WISE ANGLE has elicited individual online interviews as consultation method. All the interviewees are healthcare professionals and health research experts from three countries (Italy, Spain and Portugal).
The interviews were insightful and provided useful hints for the refinement of the character and the measures as well as the design of the game in general.
All participants were acquainted with the potential benefits of gamification techniques in learning processes and confident that STEP_UP will deliver a highly useful tool for training professionals and volunteers in the health and social care sector as well as a playful way for citizens to learn. Some of the most relevant observations were related to the use of more personal narratives to describe the challenges the character is facing in her daily life and work duties and generate empathy in the player. The interviewees also made concrete examples of situations and events the character shall be confronted with and suggested several “mini-games” to be embedded in the game flow.