Tag: medicine

Wunderdoktor
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Wunderdoktor has the most bizarre illnesses to show you

In 2014, German game maker Konstantin Kopka released a small game about “looking beneath the surface of serious medical conditions” called Wunderheilung. It had you diagnosing both a bird-person and a strange gentleman with a magnifying glass, searching for the symptoms of their maladies, and then curing them with your cursor. What stuck out about the game is how it used a mundane job to offer a window into its bizarre world. Made in only 48 hours, the slew of positive attention that Wunderheilung managed to attract took Kopka by surprise, and it encouraged him to turn it into a bigger project.…
Screenshot from die-agnosis of patient examining screen
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Die-Agnosis turns the terrifying history of medical treatment into comedy

Being a doctor in olden times wasn’t an easy task. With no antiseptics, antibiotics, or anesthesia, caring for patients even now wouldn’t be an easy task. You can throw on top of that constant plagues and, oh yeah, replace all modern medical knowledge with cures such as peeing into someone’s ear to relieve their earache. The only thing worse than being an ancient doctor is needing an ancient doctor. Die-Agnosis puts you in the shoes of one of these thoroughly misguided doctors, just doing their best to help the ill. “My sore is oozing” Die-Agnosis was created for Ludum Dare…
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This real-life injury simulator is fascinating if a little gross

Researchers from the Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology at the University of California, Los Angeles used detailed CT scans of human legs to create lifelike simulations of leg injuries to train medics. “Our goal in this specific project is to train medics to be able to deal with these sorts of injuries quickly and efficiently,” said one of the researchers, Jeff D. Eldredge, in an article for Motherboard. “When they train they have to feel the anxiety of seeing a real injury, and that’s the important aspect that’s hard to recreate.” The injury simulations, featured in the video…
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A Star-Trek-style medical scanner could be here in the near future

A team of Stanford University electrical engineers have taken large steps towards creating a portable scanning device to detect hidden objects, with possible applications in the medical field as a detector of tumors in the brain. The team says the device could be ready for practical use within the next fifteen years, despite the technology sounding like something out of science fiction—specifically, the medical tricorder tool from the world of Star Trek. In the Star Trek universe, a tricorder is a handheld multifunctional tool used for data collection, sensor-scanning, and status analysis. Medical tricorders are used by doctors to scan…
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An upcoming videogame takes a heartfelt look at depression in Tokyo

We expect our surgeons to have steady hands. Some of the time, our lives depend on it. But what happens when that steadiness deserts a surgeon? Like a golfer with the yips, one crisis leads to the next, spreading outwards to affect the surgeon’s professional life and his emotional state. Suddenly, the steadiness in question is both literal and figurative. The ground is trembling beneath their feet and nothing calms it down. How can our surgeon ever be made whole again? Healing Process, a game by developer Sam L. Jones, tells the story of a surgeon who needs to be…
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This vital organ simulator is like The Knick, but with less blood and cocaine

They say confession is good for the soul, so let’s start with this: I killed a human in three seconds. Before keeling over he had just enough time to say that he felt funny. You don’t say? He doesn’t say anything anymore, and so I sit alone with my conscience waiting for Seal Team 6 to monetize my murderous efficiency. I am still waiting.  Before you call the police, I should probably offer some exculpatory context. The incident in question occurred while playing Conor Mccann’s System Control, a “human body sustaining simulator” that was created for the 28th Ludlum Dare…
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Solve the Outbreak lets you play disease detective for a day

What could be more fun than disease puzzles? Solve the Outbreak is a new (and free) iPad app/game that allows players to live out their Contagion or even Outbreak fantasies and play the part of a CDC disease detective, solving clues to get a sense of what nasty illness each scenario presents. I’m going to admit this right now – I am a total sucker for this stuff. Playing detective is fun, sure, and I enjoy games that let me play as a crime fighter as much as the next girl, but stick me in the role of a disease…