July 19 - July 25
Meeting with the stroke therapist was really interesting. Rebecca Birkenmeir is the clinical core research patient coordinator for occupational therapy in the WashU School of Medicine. She told us what she usually does when she meets with a stroke patient, and that she stresses improving mobility so the patient can carry out ADLs (activities of daily living). We showed her our games, and she told us what she would modify to prepare patients for ADLs.
The rest of the week, I tried to make my game more general. When Rebecca saw the game, there were only two modes: in one, the fish's babies get eaten one by one whenever Spiky runs into them. When all the babies are gone, the game is over. In the other mode, nothing happens to the babies when Spiky runs into them. I made that mode so we could play for longer when we show the game to people. I realized, though, that it would be better to have just one mode, where Spiky can eat the babies, but when they are all gone, the player loses 5 points and a new string of babies pop out. It took me a while to figure out how to code this, but I did it!
