Bloody Gaming

All parents face challenges with their children. These vary from trying to get them to do their homework to staying up all night for fear that the once angelic child has turned to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Of course there can be other challenges too, such as when your child is born with a nasty disease and you just can’t make them understand how important it is to look after themselves.

Some children have the unfortunate ability to destroy their own pancreas, ending up with life long diabetes. This is a charming disease where you can’t regulate your own blood sugar leading to ulcers, nerve damage, and a strong possibility of slipping into a life threatening coma… the only way to avoid these problems is monitoring the sugar levels in the blood and regular injections of insulin. Unfortunately children are not very good at monitoring things and prefer to mess about and generally take life a lot less seriously than an adult would.

Diabetes management
Diabetes management

Luckily gaming might just be able to save the day and slap a little discipline into those care free tots.

A sneaky blood glucose meter company have come up with the cunning plan of making a meter that plugs straight into a DS or DS lite. They call it Didget. All you do is get some blood  into the Didget, look at the reading, and decide if you need a needle full of insulin in your side.

Super Didget
Super Didget

That’s the diabetic bit done and dusted, now here comes the gaming:

Plug the Didget into a DS and enter a password protected online world. The Didget tells the DS if regular daily testing has been carried out and if blood sugar levels have remained within optimum ranges. Regular testing earns points that can be used to purchase in game items, unlock mini-games and customize the Didget online world. Managing to keep blood glucose levels in the optimum range results in additional rewards.

Plugged in
Plugged in

In theory this virtual area is so good that children will want to keep their blood testing regular and thus keep up  a stream of fresh gaming content. It creates a unique virtual environment for children with diabetes where they can meet other children and game in a customisable landscape. Hopefully this will lead to well trained little diabetics who know how and when to test themselves letting Mummy and Daddy get on with other things… like playing the blood free Xbox.


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5 responses to “Bloody Gaming”

  1. arc14716 avatar
    arc14716

    Very fascinating gadget. Too bad it’s only available in the UK. I wonder how it would fare out here in the US?

  2. Barry avatar
    Barry

    note that this wont work on a DSi, as that has no GB Advanced slot

  3. The Rook avatar
    The Rook

    It’s interesting to see that a device to help kids check their blood sugar levels has been combined with a game that rewards for actually checking yourself. How do you get the blood into the Didget thou? Even with diabetes, I can’t imagine many kids wanting to anything that draws blood from them. Does the Didget have a pin-prick device to draw blood?

  4. Rhyle avatar
    Rhyle

    One of the most interesting and original posts on Ready Up. I have never seen this subject (or anything like it) covered anywhere else and, bearing in mind how little actual work I do and how many websites I visit, this always surprises me nowadays!

    Congratulations – great work.

  5. Eleanor avatar
    Eleanor

    Thanks Rhyle!

    The Didget is like most blood glucose meters, you use a pin prick device (lancet) to draw the blood which is then inserted into the Digdet. The Diget takes the reading and the lancet can then be discarded.

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