The game aims to improve the children’s fine motor skills, impulse control and precision of movement. It is supposed to be played regularly over a certain period of time, until the desired learning outcome has been achieved. Using a pressure-sensitive pen on an iPad, the player will guide a character through different levels while practising curving lines with varying degrees of freedom or deviation. Yet s/he will never perceive the game first and foremost as a training exercise, but develop motivation through the game.
In «HAAL» the player helps the last inhabitant of the enchanted kingdom Haal to break a spell and restore order in the world. By circling objects, the player animates them, using pressure control to create magic. All interactions directly or indirectly relate to ergotherapeutic interventions.
The game was created in professional cooperation with the ZHAW Winterthur/Department of Health, which comprised one of their students’ B.A. dissertation projects in psychology. The first clinical trials have taken place, and are intended to be continued and extended in the near future.
The game’s principle has been finely tuned in terms of subject matter and design to enable an effective, practical use. It also makes inroads into a highly innovative and newly developing area of ADHD therapy. The first test results already show that children greatly enjoy this type of therapy. Combining outstanding design achievements with the impending clinical analyses by the B.A dissertation in psychology, this work has a very high potential to be developed further as a joint research project by ZHdK and ZHAW. A grant from the ZHdK award scheme would provide very important support.
Website: avathalheim.github.io