Dr. Sara: Disease Detective
a mobile game about contact tracing
Dr. Sara: Disease Detective
Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is a visual novel mobile game featuring the World's Greatest Epidemiologist, investigating and solving outbreaks around the globe.
Students take on the role of Dr. Sara in a character-driven simulation of Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) detective work-investigating and solving outbreaks around the globe.
Dr. Sara is a brave, brilliant disease detective taking on severe and perplexing outbreaks in hotspots around the world-searching for the index case, connecting seemingly disparate dots, confronting fear, both personal and societal-all the while racing against time to find clues to a cure. Like a cross between Lara Croft and Dr. House MD: Dr. Sara is equally at home in the lab, in the field, and on duty in the emergency room.
Dr. Sara: Disease Detective features high stakes time pressure, compelling characters, narrative design, challenging puzzles, and the natural gameplay dynamics that emerge from network science and contact tracing. We hope this new visual novel mobile game game will inspire students to develop an interest in science medicine technology and public health. Fun, immersive gameplay features include: Visual novel style interactive dialogue; Innovative character design; MiniGames about social distancing; Hidden object investigation; Eureka style logic puzzles; Collectible scientific vocabulary; game-based learning techniques; Cinematics, visual effects, original music and immersive sound design.
Dr. Sara: Disease Detective is made possible by funding from the HBKU Innovation Center in Education City in Doha, Qatar.
Game Art - selections
Credits
Spencer Striker, PhD
Creator, Design Director, Producer
Stella Wang
Game Artist
Alexander Pyatkov
Cinematics Animator
Dimitri Darsch
Senior Game Designer
Xing Qin
Game Designer, QA
Beni Maru
Sound Designer
Mishaal Shirazi
Social Media Manager
Guillaume Le Taeron
Game Engineer
Jade Chen
Game Designer, QA
Laiba Mubashar
Project Manager
Samson Mbogo
Social Media Manager
Svetlana Lebed
UI Designer, Cinematics Illustrator
Anto Mohsin, PhD
Science & Tech Studies Expert, Producer
Ali Sultan, PhD, MD
Epidemiology Advisor
Official Trailer
Press for Dr. Sara: Disease Detective
Making Science Fun: What Game-playing Tells Us About Designing a Learning Experience
QF Stories, January 4, 2022
Student at Qatar Foundation reviews epidemiology game
Story | Education, February 28, 2022
Op-Ed: Learning Science through Gameplay
Qatar Foundation, Story | Education, July 20, 2020
COVID-19: QF university researchers develop ‘disease detective’ mobile game
Doha News, July 10, 2020
NU-Q professors developing gaming app on contact tracing
The Peninsula, July 1, 2020
Dr. Sara: Disease Detective - a mobile game about contact tracing
Gulf Times, July 1, 2020
Amazing Apps: Dr. Sara - Disease Detective
Motherhood Moment blog, January 18, 2022