The Future of Medicine is…Gaming? Find out how Spy Hop – a digital media center teaching game design to emerging artists – is revolutionizing the video game industry.

Video games can reach players in ways that “traditional” mediums never could — they put the player in the shoes of another, changing perspectives by leading us to consider lives and scenarios we may have never otherwise known. But these game designers are tackling the issue from a new angle — artists and designers created a game that promotes empowerment over cancer, and it has been so effective that it’s currently in clinical trials.

Find out how Spy Hop is guiding gaming towards the future of supplementary medicine:

Empower Stars is a therapeutic video game for children with cancer. Currently under FDA approvals, this game was created by Spy Hop students for pediatric Cancer patients to play during their recovery.

It places the player in the hands of a space fighter – their mission? To defeat evil crabs, reminding players of their own fighting spirit.

Mathew Beseris, Lead Programmer, 19, on creating the game: “Doctors from the University of Utah came to SpyHop asking to assemble a team to work on something that would help Cancer patients in recovery and we went from there. We knew we wanted it to be an adventure — we decided on space travel and before we knew it, we had a full concept.

I think Game Design is more interactive than most mediums — a game helps you engage and feel a part of what you’re doing.

I used to do game design just because I wanted to have fun, buy now that I’ve made this game, I learned what you can really do, you can make a true difference.”  

By innovating within their own field and creating towards a tangible goal of changing lives for the better, Spy Hop students embody the term Creative Impact. And they’re just getting started.

Check out the other ways this arts organization is changing the field for the better.