Defeat enemy cells with supercharged CAR T heroes
Welcome to the bone marrow - a blood cell 'factory' that helps humans fight infection. Right now, it's under attack by cancer cells. Against the clock, your mission is to mobilise superpowered CAR T cells to clear wave after wave of microscopic enemy invaders.
T Cell Titans is a shooter game that helps young patients understand what happens in their bodies when undergoing CAR T cell therapy. Made for Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and co-designed with the young people themselves, the game supports the amazing care work done by health practitioners in the NHS.
6 - 11 Years
Shooter
CAR T Cell Therapy
The Challenge
To design and build a game that supports conversations about CAR T Cell therapy between healthcare practitioners and young Leukaemia patients. For this purpose, T Cell Titans has to depict the various 'superpowers' that can be programmed into T Cells, as well innate immune responses such as macrophage and cytokine release. The effects of excessive cytokine production that can occur during CAR T Cell therapy (aka a 'cytokine storm') also have to be visualised.
Another key feature of the project was that the young patients acted as co-creators. With help from the GOSH team, we led sessions that steered the look and tone of the game as well as the gameplay style. As well as offering their own ideas in the form of character sketches, the young people tested the game and provided valuable feedback to enhance the final product.
The development of the game was a really enriching one. We connected to many younger and older patients treated on our CAR T programme and it sparked conversations with family members.
