Kostas Mitsis

Solve a mystery that unfolds in medieval past and modern present as you learn about diabetes management. Role: Creative director Responsibilities: Creative lead / Game design / Narrative design / Illustration / Coding Development details: Nous4Health, 8-person team, GameMaker/Unity, Sep '17 to Jul '19 Dragamis is an interactive story driven game for children suffering from type 1 diabetes designed and developed by the Nous4Health initiative. Along with creatively leading the effort, I wrote the game story and got involved in game design, illustration, and coding. Maintaining the balance between educational content, realistic simulation mechanisms of glucose metabolism and player engagement was challenging, but also greatly fulfilling. We presented the first episode of Dragamis (roughly 1 hour of gameplay time) in various international exhibitions and applied it in classroom settings and educational workshops. Development of additional episodes was discontinued due to the pandemic.

Dragamis is a tale about two children with diabetes, one living in the present and the other in the medieval times.

The story takes place in a medieval castle and its surrounding forest as an evil wizard tries to take control of a mighty magic shield that will make him the undisputed ruler of the land.

The two children manage to communicate and exchange items through a magic book and the assistance of some friendly tiny dragons.

The player must assist the two main characters to twart the plans of the evil wizard while learning about diabetes self-management.

The player's choises affect the management of glucose levels. At the end of each in game day the player can see how his decisions affected the glucose curve, as well as the effect of alternate choices retrospectively.

These choices are weaved in the game narrative to create an engaging educational tool.