In The Works: Camp Cura
A Look into TXIs Latest Project on Asthma Symptom Management
From virtual beings to media literacy, TXI is at the forefront of innovative immersive research. Our goal is to highlight some of the amazing research projects currently in the works at the Texas Immersive Institute by our students and fellows.
This month we’re highlighting Camp Cura, a symptom management game. We spoke to Madison Phelan, the current project manager of the Camp Cura team.
Tell Us about yourself and a little bit about the project.
Yeah! I’m a second-year grad student in advertising in the immersive sequence. I graduated from UT in 2021 with an advertising degree as well, along with a focus in Texas Media and Analytics sequence. I am very interested in storytelling and creating data-driven experiences that leave an impact on audiences. As for this project, we are building an experience centered around learning how to manage asthma through gaming and interactive elements.
Tell us about the team.
On the team we have Dr. Rhee who is the reason this whole project came to be. She is the researcher and the one who came to Texas Immersive and asked if we could build an experience to help young adults learn about asthma and their symptoms. Her and Erin Reilly are the Co-PIs (Principal Investigators) for Camp Cura. Erin has also been involved from the start and continues to dedicate her time to this project; her expertise in the field has been super helpful as we continue to develop our app.
We have Arianna Ortiz, who is art director. She is creating the assets for the game and working closely alongside myself and Tyler and making sure that we have all assets necessary. We also have Zach Harper, who is our narrative/interactive designer who has really been very helpful in creating these interactions for the user to play alongside their virtual friend, but also learn about their asthma. We have Ciarra Nean-Marzella, and she is also our narrative and interactive designer. She focuses more on the narrative aspects–the conversations you’re having with your virtual friend–and she’s been really helpful and developing that close relationship you would have with your virtual friend and when you talk to them throughout the game. We also have Tyler who is our developer. He is a current professor at UT and has been very beneficial in building this whole experience in Unity. Finally, I’m the project manager. I oversee the project itself, making sure we’re following a timeline and budget, designing the user experience flow, and ultimately stepping in wherever I’m needed.
Who is the target audience?
We are targeting 16–20 year olds. This age group is about to gain some independence, whether they’re entering college for the first time, they’re about to graduate, or they’re just moving into a new stage of life.This age group is a growth period. It’s a very important opportunity for these individuals who are getting more independence that they know how to take care of themselves, especially their asthma. Dr. Rhee has found that this age group often doesn’t even know what kind of inhaler they take. We really want to make sure that these people can take care of themselves and have the tools to do so instead of having to learn through trial and error. We also want to reach people of color. We really want to make sure that we can reach those populations in a more easily accessible format.
What are you trying to solve?
We are targeting younger adults, high school students. We are targeting younger populations who don’t know how to manage their asthma. Oftentimes, there’s a lot of stigma around having asthma. It’s also hard for them whenever they are on their own to manage it by themselves. So we are creating an experience that gives them autonomy, and teaches them about how they can manage their asthma themselves,identify symptoms, and understand their medication.
How has the project evolved from experimental storytelling?
So back in Experimental Storytelling class, Dr. Rhee, as a client of the class, worked with 2 teams to develop BLU, Your Asthma Friend and Breeze Buddies. BLU introduced the user to a Virtual Being that would check in on you daily, responding to your current symptom needs. Breeze Buddies offered the user a chance to take care of a virtual plant while you learned how to manage your asthma symptoms. Both offered inspiration to Dr. Rhee as to the possibilities of how users could engage in immersive experiences. This summer, Texas Immersive Institute reconnected with Dr. Rhee to put together a new team that is developing Camp CURA which is more of a narrative game experience that connects the user with a Virtual Friend. This “friend” is your cabin mate at a summer camp, and together, you go on adventures, completing daily activities, minigames and emotionally growing together as you learn about asthma and how to manage it.
Could you define Virtual Friend?
Yeah, so a virtual friend is an entity, online or in the virtual landscape, that you can communicate with, and it responds based on the answers you give it. It’s different from, say, a text-based game, because those are set responses to set choices. With a virtual friendyou can speak and talk with a friend in real life, and you wouldn’t necessarily know exactly how they’re going to answer in response just like a conversation you would have with a person in real life.
Why have the application be a game versus a simple symptom manager?
So gamification — not everything needs to be made into a game at the end of the day. But one thing we did see as a great opportunity with this project is the fact that this audience is a bit younger. We are targeting younger adults and teenagers. We realize that games are an interactive medium can bring to life health concepts. Often, health related information and news is shared in a very serious format. We wanted to enhance the learning environment, and add immersion to the overall experience, so that you can also have fun while learning to take care of yourself.
What technology is this project using?
We are using GPT3 which is a program that allows you to teach an AI how to respond to certain phrases or words based on their assigned traits or personality. There is a system that generates responses based on what the user said to the AI. Specifically, we are using the program with Open AI. Open AI is a perfect opportunity to test out the words and phrases that we are using while we’re building this experience and making sure that we’re going in the right direction. It also helps to ensure that when people send a message to their virtual friend, that the friend responds with relevant message. We are also using Unity. Unity is a great platform to build mobile games, mobile apps, and also desktop games and desktop apps. It is a very versatile platform that allows a lot of room and also comes along with great assets that we could borrow and use while we’re in the developing stages.
Why use Unity over other game development platforms such as unreal?
Unity is a great platform because it is an industry standard for most game development along with Unreal. It provides a lot of options, settings, and customization. Not only that it also has a great asset store that we can borrow from and use during these development stages.
Tell us a bit about the planning process?
Absolutely. So we’ve been using Figma a lot. And basically, Figma is where we’re truly building out our user experience flow, and also the mock ups for the app that we then send to our developer, Tyler. He builds out on the Unity front what we’ve built in the figma. We also use Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Docs to layout our overall flow and make sure we’re hitting the story beats. We’re also using notion, which has been really beneficial in terms of project management, timelines, and also keeping our notes and research all in one place.
What personally interested you in this project?
Basically, one of the main motivations I have for joining this project is the fact that we are able to create an experience in a game-like manner that is also able to impact an audience. My biggest motivation for any immersive experience is that it has a meaningful impact on audiences. To create a game that helps this audience by helping them help themselves and take better care of themselves is very meaningful to me. I’m very happy to be here and happy to be along for this journey.
Where is Camp Cura now?
Right now we are finishing up building the Figma and overall interaction experience, we want to make sure that we have all the necessary bases covered before we deep dive into the development stage. We have started the base level of building out the MVP by using the Figma to plan and set up the dialogue for GPT3. We’re also laying out the groundwork for Unity.
Where do you see this going?
I’m really excited about this project because we definitely built it out in a way that targets those with asthma, but also it has an amazing opportunity to grow and expand to other audiences.
Any closing statements?
I’m just really excited to see where this project is going. Stay tuned for more immersive information and for when we launch this app. Be sure to keep a lookout for it, it’s gonna be great. From where we started and where we are now, it’s gone through a lot of changes and this whole process has just been a really great opportunity and I looked forward to seeing what other opportunities TXI has to offer.
Interested in working with TXI? Contact us at texasimmersive@austin.utexas.edu or learn more here.
