Life is tough, it’s a fact, so why not make it a bit more playful? The South Australian Maritime Museum came to the same conclusion and they created a great game for an exhibition ‘Rough Medicine: Life & Death in the Age of Sail’. The whole gameplay is based on location, proximity and beacons.
However simple the idea may seem, it engages and immerses the user. A visitor to the exhibition becomes a surgeon. After selecting a sick patient, they try to find a cure. To do that, you need to carefully watch a thermometer which appears on your screen and indicates whether the player is nearby the correct remedy. The final score determines whether the player succeeds and achieves ‘Star surgeon’ status or fails and receives a ‘Sloppy surgeon’ message. There are some surprise images and sounds to engage the player.
iBeacon technology provided a good base to create a game which allows visitors to interact which a selection of historical objects. - said Oliver Scholey, developer of the app.
Big kudos to Oliver and Lindl Lawton who curated the content. If you want to become a doctor and cure some poor patients, you should definitely go to The South Australian Maritime Museum and play with 'Life .. or Death?’