Menstruation Navigation
Art Direction: Sara Rutkowski
Game Mechanics & Assets: Hailey Jorgensen
Game Mechanics: Ana Beiriger
This tabletop board game introduces the concept of menstruation to middle-schoolers in a cute and approachable way. The game focuses on completing a 28-day cycle; the player is able to pick a contraceptive to see the potential health benefits it has on menstruation. The game encourages learning about period symptoms, the hormones involved, and different contraceptives that can be used as treatment.
Blood Type Bop
Game Designer: Sara Rutkowski
For undergraduate anatomy students, this game helps to teach which blood types can be donated to which others. The blood types are randomized on screen into bubbles, and the player must shoot correct donors to their corresponding matches. The game is 2D based, and in order to win the player must make sure their bubbles do not build up and cross the orange line.
Menstru-Mania
Lead Game Designer: Sara Rutkowski
Lead Assets: Xiaotian Jiao
Game Designer & Assets: Hannah Montague
Lead Programmer: Oliva De Kok
Menstru-Mania is a 2D video game meant to educate middle schoolers, mainly girls, about menstruation and menstrual care. The player gets to choose being a pad, tampon, or pair of period underwear and must collect droplets of blood from a bleeding uterus. The objective is to catch as much blood as possible while also collecting and changing menstrual products to practice good hygiene. The game was designed to be casual, lighthearted, and extremely encouraging for middle schoolers to feel positive about menstruation.
Hydrothermia
Project Manager: Sara Rutkowski
Lead Programmer: Xiaotian Jiao
Assets: Sydney Agger, Yu-Sin Huang, Maryam Shabbir
This immersive experience was made for the Oculus Quest series. The player is sent by their professor to explore hydrothermal vents and catch sea creatures that live in this extreme environment. The player operates a steampunk-styled submarine and fills out a logbook along the way, sometimes getting interrupted by their eccentric professor while trying to catch specimens.
Space Junk Extreme
Game Designer: Sara Rutkowski
Space Junk Extreme is a small virtual reality experience. The objective is to collect pieces of trash in outer space. The player is a robot with a magnet that catches trash in a zero-gravity environment. Along the way, the player can also view the different planets of the solar system.
Innate Immunity
Lead Programmer: Sara Rutkowski
Assets: Natalie Krug
Assets & Programmer: Ryan Nini
This 2D based game was created for an undergraduate biology audience. The purpose of the game is explore the immune response with an emphasis on the role of the macrophage. The player is a macrophage, and the goal is to ingest as many bacteria as possible before time runs out. If the player ingests a certain amount of bacteria, then they have successfully stopped the infection in the human body and have won the game.
A Flame Forward
Pre-production Team: Sara Rutkowski (Lead), April Damon, Delilah Przybyla, Lauren Muskara, Hailey Jorgensen, Allison Pardieck
Art Team: Anne Hughes (Lead), Natalie Krug, Sydney Agger, SoYoung Kwon, Hannah Montague, Delaney Maxwell
Programming Team: Sam Bond (Lead), Yu-Sin Huang, Ryan Nini, Maryam Shabbir
A Flame Forward is a 2D mental health-based game that centers on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and stressors. The player is a flame-like character that wants to get through their apartment complex and helps friends along the way. It was created for the Vesalius Trust-A-Thon two-week team challenge by the above members (also known as Studio Bivly). The game won first place and Studio Bivly raised $1953 for medical illustration scholarships.