Plan-it Commander
(2013)
Growing up with ADHD is not a small thing. You feel like every other child but somehow you are different. Coping with becoming aware of being ‘different’ is hard when society often does not bend to individual needs. Most ADHD children need to cope with this between 8-12 years old, an age in which already a lot is changing. That is why Janssen Pharmaceutica, Yulius Academy and the Flemish Society for Parents of Children with ADHD teamed up with Ranj to create a game that helps players become more confident and make their daily living more enjoyable. After completing the game, the Yulius Academy did a randomized controlled trail research and concluded that: ‘Plan-It Commander offers an effective therapeutic approach as an adjunct intervention to traditional therapeutic ADHD approaches that improve functional outcomes in daily life.’
My role
Tester
Level builder
Game Designer (assisted team)
Software
Web
Related links
Journal of Medical Internet Research – Randomized Controlled Trail
Awards
Best Health Game Award – Fun & Serious Game Festival, Bilbao, 2013
Nominated for Best Serious Game Award – Dutch Game Awards, 2013
Worked for
Worked with
Gameplay trailer (NL)
The game
Plan-It Commander is an adventure game where players travel to different planets to do missions. Completing missions earns minerals that can be spent to upgrade your own personal spaceship. However, doing missions stealthily practices skills that people with ADHD have difficulty with. Navigate a robot by pre-programming it through an obstacle course to train your planning and planning skills. Other games target time management, planning, organizing, working memory and even social skills.
However, Plan-It Commander tries to feel like your everyday game not a therapeutic tool. Players just try to reach the top levels, unlock new planets, upgrade gear and socialize with others. Perhaps this is the biggest win of the game. Where traditional methods where experienced as tedious and repetitive exercises Plan-It Commander was described as fun, engaging and challenging.
My role
I was introduced in the team later in development, because the game had a tremendous number of levels. Far to many for only the team to test and analyse. All the different mini games had many variations often ranging over multiple factors. For instance, not only the complexity of a maze, but also a time constraint in which to reach the end (focussing time management and planning). While Rob Nelissen (Lead Game Designer) did most of the level design, there was a huge task to make the levels themselves in the game and make sure all the levels where achievable, in line with previous and following levels and clear of errors. This meant I filled my time making levels and testing them. Then arguing with the team about the difficulty (not for me, but the target audience). And redoing that all again after playtests with the target audience.
It was amazing to work on such a big project. Although I was not involved at the very beginning of the project seeing the rich game world come to life was an absolute blast. Knowing (a few years later) that the game actually has a significant impact and helps young ADHD patients to better cope with their day-to-day life was magnificent. I guess all the hard work paid off!