OMG, what a ride! We took Re-Mission 2 on the road to Las Vegas and got our game on, Stupid Cancer style. HopeLab was a sponsor of the OMG 2013 Stupid Cancer Summit, and it was great fun sharing the games with the more than 550 young adult cancer survivors who participated.
Watch this clip to see what OMG 2013 attendees had to say about Re-Mission 2:
As you can see, people at the event were courageous and open, ready to connect and share their thoughts on Re-Mission 2 and their experiences fighting cancer. For me, listening to their stories was a powerful reminder of the preciousness of life and human resilience. And it was rewarding to hear folks say over and over again: “I wish I had these games when I was going through my treatment!”
Some people we met were new to the Re-Mission games concept, but many members of the Stupid Cancer community were no strangers to the original Re-Mission game released by HopeLab in 2006. My colleagues also got to re-connect with some of the young adults who helped create theRe-Mission 2 games while they undergoing cancer treatment. There was a lot of conversation and gameplay as people had fun catching up!
The OMG 2013 Stupid Cancer Summit was one of the most meaningful conferences that I’ve ever experienced. Special thanks to the founder of Stupid Cancer, Matthew Zachary, and his team for creating such a personal, real, joyful and life-inspiring experience for all of us fortunate enough to be involved.
The event both inspired us in our work to get Re-Mission 2 to young people fighting cancer and served as a powerful reminder for all of us to appreciate life and to get busy living!
Here’s an inside look at one of our Re-Mission 2 games. Each game puts players inside the human body to defeat cancer using weapons like chemotherapy, antibiotics, and the body’s natural defenses.
Re-Mission 2: Stem Cell Defender has you battling against invading bacteria while protecting healthy stem cells. In this clip, see how the nanobot hero flings those bacteria to feed the nest of growing stem cells and make them strong. Toward the end, when the bacteria start coming in greater numbers, the nanobot brings in the heavy weapons: powerful antibiotic bombs to help even the odds.
What’s the point of all this action? When fighting cancer, protecting the body’s natural defenses – like stem cells and white blood cells – is critically important. Stem Cell Defender lets players experience how battling bacteria and supporting healthy cells helps to defeat cancer.
We’ve had such a blast coming up with the cast of cancer-fighting characters and gameplay scenarios in Re-Mission 2, we want to share some of the creative fun with you in our first ever Facebook caption contest!
Here’s how the contest works: Go to our Facebook page and check out the screenshot from one of the Re-Mission 2 games, then post a phrase or sentence that describes the image in the comments section of the post.
A week after the image is posted, we’ll pick a winning screenshot caption. (Hint: We really like smart, observant or just plain silly comments that make us LOL.) The winner will receive our gratitude, official and eternal HopeLab Facebook fame, and some official Re-Mission 2 SWAG (you know you want some!).
Have fun and be awesome!
Not sure what Re-Mission 2 is? Check it out here to learn more and play!
I get to do some fun stuff as head of communications at HopeLab, and being a guest on this show (twice now!) is always a blast. This time, I gave some inside scoop on our new Re-Mission 2 games.
Host Matthew Zachary and the whole Stupid Cancer team take on issues facing young-adult cancer patients with a sense of humor and a serious commitment to advocating for more research and better social support for young adult cancer survivors.
We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation on how technology are radically transforming the landscape of cancer support and advocacy, from social media to online cancer support communities to games like Re-Mission 2. We’ll be at Stupid Cancer’s OMG Summit in Vegas to demo the games and participate in live panel discussion, also titled Gaming and the ePatient Revolution. If you’re at the summit, come find us and say hello!
Last week the HopeLab team packed up our laptops and headed over to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) down the road in Palo Alto to share Re-Mission 2 games with patients and hospital staff. On hand were some of the young people with cancer who helped us design the games by offering input on characters and gameplay to help us amp up the fun factor.
Were the kids as excited about the finished games as we are? Seems so!
The mom of one young man who was particularly involved in Re-Mission 2 game development said, “He’s just wrapped up his treatment, and this was literally the first week in two and half years we didn’t have to be at the hospital for an appointment. And then he heard about this event, and he insisted on coming!”
The event gave us a chance to say thank you to the kids and hospital staff who helped make Re-Mission 2 possible. We could not have done it with out them. In fact, HopeLab and LPCH go way back – the oncology staff at the hospital were early supporters of the original Re-Mission game, and LPCH was one of the sites for the Re-Mission Outcomes Study. We were thrilled to have them back on board, along with a number of other hospitals across the country, to help make Re-Mission 2 a reality.
Once again, thanks to everyone at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital for all your enthusiasm and support. Play on!
Slice and dice! Seek and destroy! That’s what adolescent and young adult cancer patients told us they wanted to do to their disease. This new Re-Mission 2 trailer shows off some of that action in the games, but to get the full cancer-fighting experience you’ll have to spend some quality time blasting (and chomping, zapping and blowing up) cancer at www.re-mission2.org (games go live April 29).
Click play for a preview. More inside details after the clip!
How did we decide on the gameplay styles? HopeLab worked with over 120 young adults and kids with cancer to develop Re-Mission 2, and when they spoke, we listened. The action in each game was informed by insights from these game co-developers, who we met at hospitals all over the U.S. In fact, the HopeLab R&D team flew thousands of miles to find out exactly how cancer might be chopped and destroyed in a game for maximum fun.
And here’s a little insider info: Nicole Weedon, who created this trailer, was also the mastermind behind the background art that you’ll see on www.re-mission2.org. Our adolescent and young adult co-developers let us know that they wanted to fight cancer inside the body, and Nicole worked hard to make that feel real on the website.
When our team considered how we could tell our story about the development of Re-Mission 2, it was obvious. We wanted you to hear directly from the people who helped shape the product – kids with cancer, survivors, the clinicians who treat kids, and HopeLab staff.
More than 120 kids from hospitals across the U.S. helped us create Re-Mission 2. Richard and I got a chance to visit Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, to meet two of them: Caitlin and Jose, the two teens featured in the video. We weren’t sure what they were going to say, but their perspectives on Re–Mission 2 were hopeful and exciting. I think Jose put it perfectly when he said, “You’re playing a game, and you’re being chemo, and you’re killing your bad cells. And I feel like that’s something a kid can related to at any age.”
That’s exactly the kind of impact we wanted to have in creating Re-Mission 2: kids having fun playing online games based on scientific research that lets them experience what it’s like to fight cancer and win.
We hope that this video gives you a sense of what went into the development of Re-Mission 2, and the heart behind the science that helped us create these games. We couldn’t have done it without Caitlin, Jose, and all the kids who gave us their time, attention and ideas, Dr. Ernest Katz and other medical professionals like him, our hospital partners across the country, and all of the HopeLab staff. Special thanks to Ian Slattery, who elegantly captured our story. Thank you all!
At HopeLab we are huge believers that technology can be a powerful tool to support positive health behavior and improve health in young people. When we decide to make a product, we embark on a journey in which we engage kids in every step of the development effort, and we conduct rigorous research to determine whether the product works. This process is iterative and time-consuming, and it does not guarantee success. And sometimes it leads to great results.
How might one harness the innovative mindset at work, the ability to adapt and thrive in an environment of change? How does one create an organizational culture infused with mindfulness and engagement?
These are some of the questions that were posed to 400+ business executives, small business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants and others at the Wisdom 2.0 Business conference on May 11 and 12, 2012.
It was an inspiring two days – full of provocative presentations and interviews ranging from brain studies to embodiment coaching to energy management in the workplace.
I had the privilege of kicking off the conference with a check-in exercise. I was originally asked to give a talk about the value of these exercises. But rather than talk, I decided to conduct one and provide a real-time way for attendees to connect with each other.
We designed an innovative exercise based on the childhood game called Fortune Teller, or Cootie Catcher. I riffed on the original game to create an exercise that revealed provocative questions for pairs of attendees to discuss together. The questions became a fun and meaningful way for conference attendees to meet each other. The Fortune Teller was a success and was seen being used throughout the conference to spark conversation.
Our check-in exercise demonstrated how creative exercises like this are invitations for greater connection, honesty and trust.
To see our WizBiz Fortune Teller, or to make your own, check out our template and instructions. We are also creating a book of our most creative exercises – the Check-In Deck. To pre-order a copy, send an email to me at cmurchison@hopelab.org.
Learn more about Wisdom 2.0 and check out their next conference, slated for February 21-24, 2013 in San Francisco.
When I joined HopeLab in 2005 the notion that gaming might actually be good for you was a radical idea. Indeed, many viewed games with downright suspicion. Today, games are everywhere, and a growing body of data and popular commentary are making the case that games have real power to improve lives in many ways. Our own study of the positive effects of Re-Mission on health behaviors among young people with cancer provided scientific evidence for the potential for games to positively impact behavior and improve health.
But until recently, we haven’t understood exactly how game-based tools can achieve this. What are the “active ingredients” in games that can be intentionally designed to elicit specific behaviors? Over the past several years, HopeLab has been doing some deeper research to tackle this question.
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