Wanted: Killer Designs that Battle Cancer!

Wanted: Killer Designs that Battle Cancer! Submission Background and Guidelines

HopeLab is currently looking to update our successful cancer-fighting Re-Mission™ videogame with some fresh new gameplay ideas.

In the current version of the game, the majority of the Re-Mission player’s interaction takes place through shooting cancer cells.

Our goal is to incorporate new game design elements which will:

  • Enhance the “fun factor” of the game
  • Boost the variety of gameplay mechanics by taking it beyond the typical 3rd-person “shooter”
  • Retain all of the game’s benefits, including:
    • Improved treatment adherence
    • Greater cancer-related knowledge
    • Increased power and control over the disease

Here’s where you come in!

We are looking for talented game designers who can craft brief (3-4 pages) level design documents that clearly communicate their creative ideas. The designers whose ideas are selected as the best will then be invited to develop more detailed (10-12 pages) walkthroughs of their designs.

If your idea is selected as a finalist and you complete the more detailed walkthrough of your level design idea, you’ll get paid $10,000. Additionally, if your idea is used, you will be rewarded with:

  • Seeing your vision come to life (along with appropriate credit)
  • Helping teens battle cancer
  • Knowing your game design talents have contributed to the social good

Submission Guidelines

Key Dates

To be eligible for the $10,000 reward, HopeLab must receive your 3-4 page level design idea no later than April 14th. [Note: any design submissions that are part of a scholastic program will have a deadline specified by the program’s instructor.]

By April 30, 2008 HopeLab will select the best ideas. Those selected will be invited to enter into an agreement with HopeLab to develop a more extensive walkthrough of their level design idea for which they will be compensated $10,000.

Acceptable Submission Formats

Understanding that every game designer has their own particular methods for capturing and communicating their idea to others, we allow a certain amount of flexibility in how ideas can be submitted. Please use whichever of the below formats (or combinations) that best suits your style when submitting your idea:

  • Microsoft Word document
  • Microsoft Visio file
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Working UT3 level Mod for the Windows platform

Submitting Your Idea

Once your design is ready to be submitted, there are two methods for entering your design into the competition:

  • Email your idea to mwallace@hopelab.org with “Wanted” located in the subject line. Please note that emailed submissions are limited to a 3MB maximum file size, and that no executable files are allowed (.zip or .rar files are allowed)
  • Mail your design submission directly to HopeLab at the following address:

    • Mark Wallace
    HopeLab Foundation
    1991 Broadway St. Ste 136
    Redwood City, CA 94063-1957

General Design Direction

Target Audience

Re-Mission is a video game developed specifically for adolescents and young adults (age 13-29) with cancer. With this in mind, the level designs should reflect an ESRB “T” rating in terms of content and actions. It should also be appealing to as broad a demographic (e.g. gender, ethnicity, socio-economic) as possible.

Sci-Fi Biological Setting

All of the actors and their behaviors that make up the design should be based in a biological setting. To the degree possible, the environment and everything in it should look and act like something that occurs inside a human body. This is a work of science fiction, so we’re taking a little license to make it into a game, and turning otherwise static caner cells into moving, menacing enemies inspired by the behavior of cancer.

  • With the exception of the player and her weaponry, all actors should move and behave within a biological framework to meet player’s expectations that they are fighting cellular life-forms.
  • Wherever possible, the look and behavior of the cancer cells should be inspired by the actual form of the cancer.

Platform and Technology

In order to allow the most flexibility in terms of 1) ease of distribution and 2) ability to conduct research related to the game, HopeLab plans on developing both on and for the Windows-based platform. With this target platform in mind, here are some general design practices that should be considered:

  • HopeLab is planning to use an off-the-shelf 3D engine (e.g., UT3 or Torque) for our next game, so all level designs needs to be consistent with either of those engine’s basic capabilities.
  • Core gameplay of the design needs to be enjoyable in a single-player mode.
  • Incorporating any online and/or multiplayer elements should be considered as added value, but certainly not mandatory for successful gameplay enjoyment.
  • To ensure accessibility to a broad audience with a variety of hardware specs, levels should be designed with scalability in mind so that users with mid-range PCs (~2 GHz single-core CPU) are able to run the game effectively.

Additional Cancer Guidance

For more in-depth guidelines around incorporating cancer-specific knowledge into your designs, please check out this Cancer Guidelines document [PDF].

Resources and A Little Background Information:

Re-Mission is a video game developed specifically for teens with cancer. In it, players pilot a nanobot named Roxxi as she travels through the bodies of fictional cancer patients. Roxxi destroys cancer cells, battles bacterial infections, and helps manage the side effects associated with cancer and cancer treatment. Research has found that playing Re-Mission improved treatment adherence and produced increases in quality of life, self-efficacy, and cancer-related knowledge for teens with cancer.

For a more complete description of Re-Mission and to see a sample of the current gameplay, please check out our www.re-mission.net game site.


You can also ORDER a free copy of the game to check out either in DVD or CD format, or if you prefer, you can DOWNLOAD it directly and be playing it today.To learn more about HopeLab and some of the other initiatives we are involved in, please check out our main website at www.hopelab.org

Still Have Questions?

If you have additional questions that were not addressed above, please contact Mark Wallace, Senior Producer at HopeLab, at mwallace@hopelab.org.

View these instructions in PDF format