New Mobile Game Let's Students Investigate and Solve Global Disease Outbreaks

Dr. Spencer Striker, an Associate Professor of Digital Media Design at Northwestern University in Qatar, has released a new mobile game. Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is a fully interactive digital learning mobile game about epidemiology.

The game is designed to get kids interacting and having fun while developing problem-solving skills, logic skills, increasing their scientific vocabulary, and learning more about pandemics.  In this character-driven simulation of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) detective work, students search for the index case, racing against time to find clues to a cure.

"Dr. Sara: Disease Detective features high stakes time pressure, compelling characters, narrative design, challenging puzzles, and the natural gameplay dynamics that emerge from network science and contact tracing," Dr. Striker said. "We hope this new visual novel mobile game will inspire students to develop an interest in science, medical technology, and public health."

This fun and immersive game features interactive dialogue, innovative character design, minigames about social distancing, hidden object investigation, eureka style logic puzzles, collectible scientific vocabulary, game-based learning techniques, cinematics, visual effects, original music, and immersive sound design.


Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is available on the Apple Store and Google Play. For more information, visit https://www.spencerstriker.com/work/disease-detective.

Take a look a quick overview of what this game is all about.