Operation SSRI

Audience

Operation SSRI was developed for an undergraduate biology student who has a basic concept of how neurons work and for someone who wants to know more about how antidepressants work.

Medium

Unity, ZBrush, After Effects, Affinity Designer

Completed

December 11th, 2019

Format

PC desktop game

Learning Goals

1. Educate audience on how antidepressants work on a cellular level

2. To decrease the stigma surrounding the use of antidepressants by educating about its effect in the body.

The game design document produced by game producer Victoria Zakrzewski can be found below.

Art Direction

Environmental development

The environment of the game was decided to be depicted as a space scene, since the entire game would take place within the extracellular environment. Our team decided that being able to see the presynaptic surface, the postsynaptic surface and the synaptic cleft was essential to orienting the player to where the drug takes effect. The full neurons would be depicted in their entirety as distant galaxies in the background, and the serotonin and SSRI molecules would shine like stars.

Character Development

When developing the character that the player would control, we decided that we didn’t want any positive or negative associations tied to the anthropomorphized antidepressant. Because the character is being used to conduct the action of the antidepressant we wanted it to visually reflect the characteristics of the antidepressant collectables.

UI Development

During UI development we tried to use the UI to drive home the overarching narrative of the game—that you, the antidepressant, are being sent into the extracellular space for the important mission of decreasing the amount of extracellular serotonin. To aid in this, we made the UI reflect the space exploration theme of the game’s environment and drive home the importance of the task. In the 2D illustrations, pixel art was chosen to further drive home the sci-fi outer space theme.