The Game
Bipolife is a serious game produced by Ubisoft and developed by Area Effect for AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company.
It is a teaching tool that aims to help people living with bipolar disorder, by helping them better understand the symptoms of their illness. It is intended for people affected by bipolar disorder, along with their friends and family.
“During the Bipolife experience, you will share the daily life of someone living with bipolar disorder. Gradually you will teach your avatar to stabilize their mood and to stay calm over the long term through appropriate decision-making.”
Game Design
We worked very closely with AstraZeneca and a scientific committee (doctors and psychiatrists) to understand the bipolar condition (spoiler: it’s extremely complex) and try and simplify it for the game. The three main points of discussion were:
What is the game and how will it work?
How will we simulate the moods?
Ethical issues, as this was one of the first major medical serious game
The game was described very precisely in a 50 pages Game Design Document (GDD), validated by AstraZeneca very early on, making sure we agreed on everything that was going to be included. All sign & feedback, environments, customizations, interface, character system, interaction system etc. That was the easy part.
For the moods simulation we first agreed on the ressources to be used for the calculation. Then we created a simple program with an open formula for all to see and then iterated from there. We tried different graphs and timescales, until we had results that were usable for a game of 30mins, that required at least one mood swing.
For the ethical issues we finalized the terminology and goals for Bipolife. It could not be considered a medication or a treatment, it is only for informative purpose, and cannot replace long-term health care treatment and accompaniment by a psychiatrist.
The Apartment
It started with a very simple 2D layout to agree on the different themes for the rooms and their colour.
We decided that for the first version the addition of children (and their bedroom) were out of scope.
I then created a 3D mockup in SketchUp to see how it would look in-game, and validate with the client the scale, the isometric feel and confirm that we were in the right direction.
The final result of the apartment when the character is feeling good (graphics change depending on the mood).
Characters
We created a few customization options for both male and female characters, along with 20+ animations with and without accessories to be used during in-game actions.
Character Tool (SWF)
A tool was made to test all character animations in relation to all character customization, to test technical issues and for the character animator to preview her work instantly.
Everything was created using Flash, in vector art. For each customization we created a front and back view, and mirrored them to obtain 4 directions used by the isometric engine.
Most animation exist only for the front view, as we can turn the character forward when he is performing the action.
Game Director, Programming - Alexis Bacot
Art Director - Giuseppe Severino
Game Design - Meihdi Ellahiani
Interface Design - Fabien Friess, Fluo Studio
Sound FX - Strategic Music, LLC
Character Design & Animations - Jodi Anne Lorenzo & Charles Leclercq
Writer- Audrey Binet
Voice Acting - Caroline Chevreton, Bruno Magne, Vanessa Guillemot & Patrick Chayrigués
Scientific Committee - Anne-Victoire Rousselet, Dr Sébastien Gard, Dr Jean-Paul Orth, Dr Yann Quintilla, Dr Muriele Maurel, Pr Nicolas Franck, Pr Pierre-Michel Llorca, Dr Philippe Nuss, Dr Frédéric Sorbara
Ubisoft
Publishing - Gaël Seydoux & Mélanie de Riberolles
Early Concepts - Alexis Godard, Michel Pierfitte, Jérôme Collette, Yann Masson, Sébastien Kochman, Marc Albinet, Benjamin Huynh Kim Bang, Bénigne Mathieu, Emmanuel Bilbault
Legal - Virginie Gringarten, Mathilde Lepic, Charlotte Romano-Aidan
QA & Playtest - Alexandre Hartpence, Lilian Ghizdeanu, Andrei Verzea, Dan-Cristian Condruz, Julien Huguenin, Jonathan Debray