Digital health solutions for cancer patients
Here we would like to give a brief overview of some of the cool cancer games and apps that kids can already use in addition to our solution. The more possibilities for ill children, the better! There is room for all of us, no solution can fit absolutely everyone.
We have been talking a lot about research and psychological aspects of cancer treatment as these are essential components of our solution. Although we have given you updates on our own solution progress, it is not ready to be launched yet and that’s why we would like to give you an overview of other mobile applications that can be used in the meanwhile. I have been spending time in playing two cancer-related mobile games – Tumorman and Nanobot’s Revenge – and here follows a short overview of those.
Tumorman is an adventure platformer game, where you can unlock armors, weapons and power-ups by completing different challenges. Game experience for me was quite contradictory – although the logic is straight-forward and practicing should make perfect, using the joystick with your thumb could get a little irritating. And by no means I have a big thumb, quite the opposite, so probably that could be improved. But leaving the gameplay out, the coolest thing the application has, is the donation part. By collecting Red Blood Vessels and turning them into Blood Bags you will get a chance to donate to several organizations – the more time you spend on playing and collecting the more change you will make. So for the good cause it is definitely worth of your time. Tumorman is developed by Health Province and is available for free in App Store and Google Play.
Nanobot’s Revenge (Re-Mission) is about blasting cancer cells away and in a fun and aesthetically cool way. You are a cancer fighting robot and by unlocking different levels you will get more weapons to destroy those cells coming towards you. Characters and naming are done in a fun way and graphics are absolutely stunning, so getting engaged is easy and no in-app purchase and straight-forward entertainment makes this experience satisfying for even grown-ups. Unfortunately it is the only one available on mobile, but in their web page there are five more games to play, so be sure to check these out also. They actually started from a computer based solution and showed that playing Re-Mission was associated with positive effect on motivation and treatment compliance of young patients. By the way, Nanobot’s Revenge is the most successful game in the field. They have between 10 000-50 000 downloads in Play Store and a rating of 3,6/5 (based on 358 users). It is developed by HopeLab in US and is available for free in App Store and Google Play.
Moreover, there are also other apps available for such as Kid's Guide to Cancer and Our Journey with Cancer. Both of these are educational applications without the gamification component. The first one incorporates educational information for children who know someone who has a cancer and the second one is for families to learn about the important aspects before they take their child home.
So in conclusion, considering there aren’t many games related to cancer out there, these two above-mentioned applications are very worth of trying. Whether you are driven by the cool graphics or the greater good, these are two good possibilities to spend your time in a fun way. Also, if you are interested in more educational applications then check out the links above. Make sure to note that all of these applications are only available in English so there is a huge need for solutions in other languages.
Also, don’t forget that in the near future, cancer-related games will evolve from shooting games to story driven mobile RPG... and this is where we step into the game.
