RESTORE, a pan-European initiative that aims to accelerate the availability of Advanced Therapies for the benefit of patients and society, is working on a video game to raise awareness of the field of Advanced Therapies.

One room, 60 photographs, a whole life. Ready to relive Ella’s story?

Available within the next few weeks for free in the App Store and from Google Play, Fragments of Life follows the life of Ella, a teenager living with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia and treated with CAR-T cells.

It is an interactive experience that burrows deep into the human soul and leads the player to discover the joys, hopes, sorrows, first loves and friendships of young leukaemia patient Ella. 

Her diagnosis, treatment and remission, the recurrence and finally the successful treatment of Ella’s leukaemia with the breakthrough medicine, CAR-T cell therapy, is the backdrop of ten intense years of Ella’s life that the player is asked to reconstruct. 

Hans-Dieter Volk, RESTORE’s Coordinator, explains “For us as scientists, Advanced Therapies are fascinating both as biological entities and, in the way that they are starting to change the landscape of medical care. We expect them to have a major impact on individuals and society. We believe that communicating this excitement and fascination and enthusing others about Advanced Therapies is a task for RESTORE. With “Fragments of Life” we hope to educate a new generation of young people about Advanced Therapies and inspire them to find out more!”

Set in the bedroom of the protagonist Ella, the game depicts her life through 60 hand-drawn photographs. Each photo is a fragment of her life and it will be up to the player to rearrange them in the order in which the events took place by investigating each photo through features such as zooming in on the photo, accessing additional information and answering Ella’s questions about her life. 

Dr. Pier Maria Fornasari, Chief of Regenhealthsolutions, believes that learning through play is an amazing way to get young people invested in knowledge and information on healthcare topics. “Fragments of Life” is an innovative teaching instrument to introduce novel Advanced Therapies in ways that can be easily understood, at a time when fake news via media outlets and fraudulent claims raising false hopes are increasingly prevalent By educating through accessible and entertaining mediums, this new video game is the first directly designed to communicate healthcare disruptions to the public. 

The conception and development of Fragments of Life was entrusted to game designer Fabio Viola, already known for pioneering operations such as Father and Son (over 4 million downloads for the official videogame of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples) and A Life in Music (the first videogame in the world produced by a theatre, Regio Di Parma). Supporting him are the Mobile Idea srl team of illustrators, screenwriters, designers, programmers and musicians. 

“It is a great responsibility to use the language of the videogame to explain a complex theme like leukaemia. Game designer Fabio Viola said, “We have conceived an interactive story in which the entertainment component is mixed with scientific knowledge to be accessible to a wide international audience.”

More information will soon be available on the official RESTORE website.