AlchemyKnights is a transformational game designed to teach adolescents and teens about the dangers of over-the-counter medication misuse. In this session we will discuss design strategies for transformational games, mapping design features to transformational outcomes, and using an iterative develop-playtest-fix approach to evaluate and measure the transformational effect.

1. Mapping Game Design to
Transformational Outcomes
Serious Play Conference 2018

2. Name: Lorin Grieve
Title: Reverend Lady Doctor
Vocation: Instructor, Instructional
Designer, Game Designer
Primary Appointment: School of
Pharmacy
Secondary Appointment: School of
Computing & Information
Species: Fox/Raven Chimera

3. Name: Dmitriy Babichenko
Titles:
1. Professor of Practice
2. Director, Learning Technologies
Lab
Primary Appointment: School of Computing &
Information
Secondary Appointment: School of Pharmacy
Age: Irrelevant
Zodiac Sign: Aries

4. Who: Ravi Patel
What: New Idea Mercenary
(Staff/Faculty Hybrid)
Where: School of Pharmacy
When: 6+ year in
education/practice
Why: Make bad things good

6. • The Problem
• The Target
• The Solution
• The Metaphor
• The Outcome

7. Acknowledgements
To Dr.Olufunmilola Abraham, PhD, MS, BPharm1,
this project’s original PI, William O’Toole
and Daniel Justice for game design and
implementation, Jonathan Velez for game
design and project management, Tammy Young,
for coordinating resources, and Alison
Feathers, MPH, for working with study
participants

8. The Problem
&
The Target

9. Over-the-counter (OTC) medication
misuse
• Dextromethorphan (DXM)
• Loperamide
• Tylenol

10. • By age sixteen, 1 in 5 adolescents have self-medicated
with an OTC
• Last decade, increase in poison center calls from
adolescents misusing OTC medications

11. The Solution

12. Specific Objectives
• Enhance the participant’s ability to understand and identify unsafe
medication use
• Informing on basic aspects of medications
• importance of active ingredients
• importance of dosage schedules
• dangers of taking multiple medications that interact
• Facilitate participant-pharmacist communication

13. The Metaphor

19. The Outcome

20. Measuring Short-Term Efficacy
• Pretest
• Playtest
• Posttest
• Debriefing (post-playtest interview)

21. Pilot
• 9 students, age 15 to 17
• 5/4 :: Male/Female
• Seven Yes/No statements about medication use
• Open-ended questions for feedback

22. • More medicine makes you get better faster.
• You can’t be hurt from medicine purchased in a pharmacy.
• The active ingredient is what lets a medicine help you get better.
• The label on the bottle explains how much of a medicine to take.
• Not following the instructions on the label is dangerous.
• If you take a medicine correctly there should never be side-effects.
• Taking medicine when you are not sick is safe.

23. Outcome - Observations
• 7 of 9 subjects changed a Yes/No answer in the post test
• Increase in correct answers from Pre to Post
• Correct Dosing
• Active Ingredients
• Behavior observations

24. • “I really like the potions, you could overdose. I liked that a lot, I like using that
a lot”
• “It was more interactive than other games”
• Lack of WASD support, lack of potion hotkeys
• “Only use the potions when you need them”
• “Don’t overdose”
• “Drugs give you magical powers”
• “I wanted to play more”
• “It was cool”

25. Currently

26. Questions?
Feel free to ask about our other projects
Lorin Grieve, lbg6@pitt.edu

27. References
• Abel C, Johnson K, Waller D, Abdalla M, Goldsmith CAW. Nonprescription medication use and literacy among New Hampshire
eighth graders. J Am Pharm Assoc. 2012;52(6):777-782.
• Crouch BI, Caravati EM, Booth J. Trends in child and teen nonprescription drug abuse reported to a regional poison control
center. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2004;61(12):1252-1257.
• Schillie SF, Shehab N, Thomas KE, Budnitz DS. Medication overdoses leading to emergency department visits among children.
Am J Prev Med. 2009;37(3)