DIAGNOSIS PSYCHOSIS
An AR-Enhanced Board Game
Diagnosis Psychosis is an interactive strategy game seeking to expose the tumultuous, costly, and exhausting task of receiving a correct diagnosis for a rare disease in the United States. As a longtime lover of board games, I designed this game and its AR components to open up the conversation around an issue so many people face.
A physical board game with money, symptom wheels, player pieces, and event cards, the game is best played with two or more people. In order to play the game, players must download the Augmented Reality app Zappar. This app holds critical gameplay instructions, as well as the answer to what disease a player determines they have. All of the diseases and other health information, cost estimates, and events in the game are based on research I conducted with medical professionals and databases, and on experiences of myself and others.
BRIEF GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW
The objective of the game is to determine which rare disease you have, based on your collection of symptoms.
At the start of the game, players are dealt a Rare Disease in the form of a wheel. Each slice on the wheel represents a specific symptom, and each slice color represents a specific body system that symptom falls into.
You gain and lose symptoms based on the doctors you visit, the exams you have run, and the drugs you buy. Gameplay is dictated by dice, so these actions are taken when you land on the space and pay for the service. Each doctor, exam, and drug space has a symptom value indicated with a “+” or “-,” determining whether you gain or lose a symptom in that body system category when you purchase the appointment, exam, or drug. The symptom categories you gain or lose are factually accurate to the specific space you’re on. For example, if you land on “Antacid,” you will lose an orange “Digestive & Excretory Systems” symptom, as Antacids help cure gastrointestinal ailments such as Acid Reflux.
Throughout the game, you can also land on “Chance” spaces, “Medical Gamble” spaces, “Go to the E.R.” spaces, “Go to Work” spaces, and “Happy Day” spaces. Each of these brings about a new action that either costs money, takes you out of the game play, earns you money, earns you symptoms, or causes you to lose symptoms by finding out more information.
At the start of the game, you also have to select your insurance coverage. This coverage is how much you pay per turn, and determines your one time coverage, which serves as a simplified version of a real-world deductible. Throughout the game, as insurance does, this coverage affects how much of your money is lost to your medical bills.
When all the symptoms you’ve collected match all the slices on your wheel, the center of the wheel will make a Zappar code. This new code, when scanned with the Zappar app, will reveal your rare disease along with more information about it and how to help.
If you’re interested in finding out more gameplay specifics, download the app and scan the center of the game board pictured at the top of the page.
