Support the development of this game, play it, and judge it based on what matters most: the story (people don't remember info and facts without context, emotions or meaning) and your (or your children's) learning about the following topics:
(1) Where the game events take place,
(2) The purpose of neurotransmitters (NTs),
(3) Where they produce their effect and (4) How,
(5) The meaning of affinity and
(6) activity of NTs at a receptor,
(7) The reasons why NTs don't return to their cell,
(8) How enzymes affect NTs,
(9) How many receptors must be activated to activate a cell,
(10) What can make people to "want something impulsively" to the max.
Inspiration and theme:
“Children are already abusing drugs at age 12 or 13” (US National Institutes of Health -NIH-, 2020). So, what can be done? Seeking to reduce substance use, NIH scientists (2020) state that “increased understanding of the basics of addiction will empower people to make informed choices in their own lives”. But if science took +100 years to unravel how drugs change the brain and produce addiction, can regular children and adults learn such complex topics to foresee the hidden dangers of trying drugs? Can this be done in a fun and simple way, so that even children/young people can (and want!) to learn them?
'You VS Drugs' is the world's first adventure saga that takes place inside our brain while keeping the foundations of the way it really works. Through story arcs that happen to brain Agents, cinematic cutscenes and surprising storylines, 'You VS Drugs' will entertain young people while educating them about the brain bases of addiction, and how different drugs affect different parts of your brain and mind. A scientific study made with this game in 2023 shows young adults understand basics of neurobiological function related to the effect of psychoactive substances and addiction (please google "A Video Game to Teach Young Adults the Brain Basics of Addiction", and download the article if you want. Data suggests it has the same effect on children as young as 10 years old, even in Sierra Leone, a country with poor access to education, but also incredibly devastated by youth drug use.
If you make it to the end of what we've developed so far, you'll see that this game, unlike any other educational game...
(1) Provides complex information that becomes easy to understand thanks to the entertaining and carefully designed story, (2) young people will be empathetically affected by what happens in the game, which improves the memory of what they learn (3) it's much more engaging and fun, (4) it doesn't treat different substances separately, but within an integrative framework, and (6) it's based on a solid scientific statement.
