Sea Hero Quest - Media Network Manager

MEDIA INFORMATION
Bonn, Germany, May 4th, 2016
Deutsche Telekom presents innovative new mobile game ‘Sea
Hero Quest’
§
Sea Hero Quest is an innovative new mobile game specifically designed to
create the world’s largest crowd sourced data set benchmarking human
spatial navigation, helping bring scientists one step closer to developing
new diagnostic tests for dementia.
§
Sea Hero Quest has been created in partnership with the charity
Alzheimer’s Research, University College London, the University of East
Anglia and game developers Glitchers
_______________________________________________________________
Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading telecommunication companies,
has launched an innovative new mobile game Sea Hero Quest, where fun
gameplay also contributes to very good cause. The release of the game was
announced today. Sea Hero Quest is a multi platform mobile game specifically
designed to help advance our understanding of spatial navigation and how this
aspect of our brain works, as part of a coordinated effort to bring us one step
closer to managing the growing threat of dementia.
According to the The Global Impact of Dementia (2013–2050) report, dementia
will affect 135 Million people worldwide by 2050. Dementia disrupts the
formation of new memories often leaving those affected isolated and
disorientated. For many people living with dementia, one of the first effects they
experience is a loss of spatial awareness, as they lose the ability to navigate
their way through even well-known places and environments.
Creating a global benchmark for how we navigate is widely acknowledged as
one of the key steps towards developing new diagnostic tests for the diseases
that cause dementia. New drug trials are underway that offer some hope of
being able to slow the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause
of dementia. Should trials prove successful, early and timely diagnosis will
remain a barrier in our ability to effectively deploy these new drugs.
Dementia is a condition that robs those we love of the ability to share their
memories. Deutsche Telekom believes that innovative technology and new
services can have the ability to transform everyone’s lives for the better.
In a keynote address given at re:publica Berlin, Hans-Christian Schwingen,
Deutsche Telekom’s Chief Brand Officer said: “Deutsche Telekom believe in
the power of sharing. We knew that there must be a way of empowering
everyone to share their time to help to move us one step closer to a
breakthrough in the field of dementia. At the same time, we realised that if we
wanted to achieve real scale and truly make a difference, we needed to make it
fun for everyone involved. We needed to create something that would get
people gaming for good.”
In a process led by Saatchi & Saatchi London, every aspect of Sea Hero Quest
has been designed jointly by game developers and scientists to provide insights
about the way we navigate everyday. As players make their way through mazes
of islands and icebergs, every second of gameplay can be translated into
scientific data by experts. Playing Sea Hero Quest for 2 minutes equates to 5
hours of similar, conventional research. If 100,000 people play for 2 minutes
each we can generate the equivalent of more than 50 years of this kind of lab
based research.
Hilary Evans, Chief Executive at the charity Alzheimer’s Research commented:
“We have never seen anything undertaken in dementia research at this scale
before. The data set that Deutsche Telekom’s Sea Hero Quest generates is
truly unprecedented, until now these kind of investigations took years to
coordinate and at best gave us a snap shot of how a very small sample of
volunteers behaved. The largest spatial navigation study to date comprised less
than 600 volunteers. Providing the research community with access to an open
source data set of this nature, at this scale, in such a short period of time is
exactly the kind of innovation required to unlock the next breakthrough in
dementia research”.
All of the gameplay data collected will be anonymised and stored securely
within T-Systems data center in Germany to ensure data integrity and data
privacy according to German data security law, one of the strictest in Europe.
Sea Hero Quest is available globally for iOS and Android and can be
downloaded now for free from the App Store and Google Play.
More information about this unique game for good, the story of its creation and
the condition it is designed to help us understand can be found at
www.seaheroquest.com
Multimedia Material: http://bit.ly/GameforGood
Campaign Film: https://youtu.be/jm1SyEi0Qis
Project Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc3jORxvjm4
Hashtag: #gameforgood
Deutsche Telekom AG
Corporate Communications
Tel.: +49 228 181 – 4949
E-Mail: [email protected]
Further information for the media at:
www.telekom.com/media
www.telekom.com/photos
www.twitter.com/telekom_group
www.facebook.com/deutschetelekom
www.telekom.com/blog
www.youtube.com/deutschetelekom
www.instagram.com/deutschetelekom
About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with
more than 156 million mobile customers, 29 million fixed-network lines and around 18 million
broadband lines (as of December 31, 2015). The Group provides fixed-network/broadband,
mobile communications, Internet, and Internet-based TV products and services for consumers,
and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is
present in more than 50 countries and has around 225,200 employees worldwide. The Group
generated revenues of EUR 69.2 billion in the 2015 financial year – around 64 percent of it
outside Germany.
About Saatchi & Saatchi (SSF Group)
Saatchi & Saatchi London is known for its strength in creating Loyalty Beyond Reason for its
clients’ brands, creating powerful and profitable relationships by improving the quality and
quantity of conversations that take place about these brands. Saatchi & Saatchi's clients
include EE, Kerry Foods, HSBC, Procter & Gamble, Toyota and Visa. The Saatchi & Saatchi
network has 130 offices in 70 countries and 6,500 employees. Saatchi & Saatchi London is part
of the SSF Group, a mini group within the Publicis Groupe that unites Saatchi & Saatchi and
Fallon. Website www.saatchi.co.uk, Twitter @saatchilondon
About Alzheimer’s Research UK
Alzheimer’s Research UK is one of the world’s leading charity funders of biomedical dementia
research. The charity’s pioneering work focuses on prevention, treatment and cure of
Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Alzheimer’s Research UK is energising a movement across
society to support, fund and take part in dementia research and the charity aims to empower
people across all generations through greater understanding of dementia. Website
www.alzheimersresearchuk.org, Twitter @ARUKnews
About Glitchers
GLITCHERS was founded with the intention of creating products that have real purpose and
make some kind of creative or technological leap.Our passion for doing this has seen us
releasing lots of our own ideas – and that has led to collaborations with some of the world’s
most forward-thinking people, institutions and brands. We ruthlessly strive to only ever produce
fresh and engaging content we truly believe in. Website www.glitchers.com, Twitter @glitche_rs
About University College London (UCL)
UCL was founded in 1826. We were the first English university established after Oxford and
Cambridge, the first to open up university education to those previously excluded from it, and
the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. We are among the
world's top universities, as reflected by performance in a range of international rankings and
tables. UCL currently has over 35,000 students from 150 countries and over 11,000 staff. Our
annual income is more than £1 billion. Website: www.ucl.ac.uk, Twitter @uclnews
About The University of East Anglia (UEA)
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is among the top 1% of universities globally (Times Higher
Education World Rankings 2014-15) and placed 10th in the UK for the quality of its research
output (Research Excellence Framework 2014). Also known for its outstanding student
experience, it has achieved a Top 10 rating in the National Student Survey every year since the
survey began. UEA is a leading member of the Norwich Research Park - one of Europe’s
largest concentrations of researchers in the fields of environment, health and plant science.
Website www.uea.ac.uk, Twitter @uniofeastanglia
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM
SEA HERO QUEST: EXPERT/PARTNER BIOS
Hans-Christian Schwingen, Chief Brand Officer, Deutsche Telekom
Before joining Deutsche Telekom, Hans-Christian Schwingen was in charge of
Marketing and Communications at Audi. Prior to that, he worked for advertising
agencies Grey and Springer & Jacoby, most recently as Managing Director. In his
role as Chief Brand Officer, Schwingen has set in motion the idea that Deutsche
Telekom should be perceived as a digital lifestyle brand, instead of just an
infrastructure provider. His motivation since joining the company has been to link
products and content to the brand claim, "Life is for sharing."
Most recently, Schwingen has pushed to extend the power of sharing even further. Through fostering collaborations,
sharing knowledge, ideas, innovative technology and data, Deutsche Telekom are empowering consumers to share
their time to advance global healthcare research through mobile game play. For his work at Telekom, both the brand
and Schwingen have received numerous awards. Currently, Brand Finance Global 500 ranks Telekom as the most
valuable telecommunications brand in Europe and the second most valuable German brand in the world, behind
BMW. Twitter: @deutschetelekom
Prof Michael Hornberger, Professor Dementia Research,
University of East Anglia
Prof Michael Hornberger is originally from Germany but gravitated soon to England
where he did his PhD at University College London before moving to Cambridge for
a post-doctoral fellowship. He spent six years in Sydney (Australia) leading his own
neurodegenerative research group before returning to Cambridge in 2013.
He is now Professor of Dementia Research at University of East Anglia. Prof Michael Hornberger’s research focus is on
decision making and memory in the human brain. He is interested in the interface between cognitive and clinical
neuroscience. To investigate these processes he develops and employs experimental cognitive and neuroimaging
techniques in neurodegenerative patient populations as well as healthy controls.
Max Scott-Slade, Game Designer and Co-Founder, Glitchers
As a co-founder of Johnny Two Shoes in 2007, Max Scott-Slade launched The Heist
series that has gone on to achieve over 250 million plays. He has also launched
many other games played by millions of fans, including Comatose, the Banana
Dash series and High Speed Chase. Building games with film and commercial
brands inspired him to build the wildly successful iOS game in 2010 —
Plunderland — with a metacritic score of 86 and over half a million downloads to
date. In 2013 he co-founded ‘GLITCHERS’ whose aim is to build experimental game concepts, release them as highly
polished minimal viable products, learn & iterate. This leads him to the current day, soaking in knowledge, wanting to
know more about the way people play games, how they’re affected by play and determining a fair way to sell games
through experimentation. Max Scott-Slade speaks on game design at conferences and universities across the UK &
Scandinavia. Twitter @glitche_rs
Dr Hugo Spiers, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience,
Department of Psychology, University College London
Dr Hugo Spiers completed his Ph.D. at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.
After post-doctoral fellowships at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in
Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuro-imaging, he was awarded a
Wellcome Trust Advanced Training Fellowship. He employs cognitive and
behavioural neuroscience techniques to study the neural basis of spatial cognition.
Dr Hugo Spiers is interested in how our brain constructs representations of the world and uses them to navigate,
imagine the future and remember the past. He uses brain imaging, neuropsychological testing, virtual reality, eyetracking and single cell recording as methods to understand brain function and spatial cognition. Twitter @hugospiers
Hilary Evans, Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK
Hilary Evans is Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, which is an NGO
working at a global level towards a world where people are free from the fear, harm
and heartbreak of dementia. The organisation’s aim is to raise awareness of the
diseases that cause dementia, to increase dementia research funding and improve
the environment for dementia scientists in the UK and internationally. Alzheimer’s
Research UK is at the forefront of challenging people’s perceptions of dementia, finding innovative ways of
communicating and creating new platforms to engage citizens in a united fight to defeat dementia.
Hilary Evans joined Alzheimer’s Research UK in 2013 to drive forward the organisation’s profile and influence, working
closely with the G8 and the World Dementia Council as part of a global commitment to find treatments by 2025. As
part of this program, Hilary is pioneering new ways of supporting research, including setting up the Dementia Drug
Discovery Institutes, the Global Clinical Trials Fund and the Global Dementia Discovery Fund. She has a strong
background in NGOs, having previously worked for the older people’s charities Age UK and Age Concern, and started
her career as an advisor to the UK government. Hilary Evans has also worked in policy roles for pharmaceutical
companies, advising on patient advocacy and market access issues. Twitter @HilaryAlzUK
Tim Parry, Head of Communications at Alzheimer’s Research UK
Tim Parry has overseen the growth of Alzheimer’s Research UK’s communications,
establishing its press office in 2008. The charity is now the leading voice on
dementia science in the UK media thanks to its award-winning team.
Tim Parry is responsible for Alzheimer’s Research UK’s media, health information
and science communications functions, as well as its digital and social media work
and branding. He has 13 years’ experience in PR and corporate communications across the public, corporate and
voluntary sectors.
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM
SEA HERO QUEST: SUPPORTING QUOTES
“Deutsche Telekom believe in the power of sharing. We knew that there must be a way of empowering everyone to
share their time to help to move us one step closer to a breakthrough in the field of dementia. At the same time, we
realised that if we wanted to achieve real scale and truly make a difference, we needed to make it fun for everyone
involved. We needed to create something that would get people gaming for good.”
Hans-Christian Schwingen, Chief Brand Officer, Deutsche Telekom
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“We have never seen anything undertaken in dementia research quite at this scale before. The data set that Deutsche
Telekom’s ‘Sea Hero Quest’ generates is truly unprecedented, until now these kind of investigations took years to
coordinate and at best gave us a snap shot of how a very small sample of volunteers behaved. The largest spatial
navigation study to date comprised less than 600 volunteers. Providing the research community with access to an
open source data set of this nature, at this scale, in such a short period of time is exactly the kind of innovation
required in dementia research to accelerate progress.”
Hilary Evans, Chief Executive, Alzheimer’s Research (UK)
---------
"Working with Deutsche Telekom and alongside scientific research teams from University College London and the
University of East Anglia we have created innovative new ways to collect scientific research data through play. It was
essential to design a mobile game that had strong gameplay hooks whilst being sensitive to the science to learn the
most about how players navigate. In doing this, we have developed brand new solutions for ethical data collection at
scale.”
Max Scott-Slade, Game Design Director, Glitchers
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“This project provides an unprecedented chance to study how many thousands of people from different countries and
cultures navigate space. This will help shed light on how we use our brain to navigate and aid in future work on
diagnostics and drug treatment programmes in dementia research.”
Dr Hugo Spiers (University College London) and Prof Michael Hornberger (University of East Anglia)
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“This film is about so much more than simply promoting a new mobile game. We wanted to capture the tenderness of
the relationship between the father and son at the heart of the Sea Hero Quest story and the son’s desire to capture the
enduring beauty of the memories that once filled the pages of his father's journal. In telling a human story we were
looking to connect people with the very real impacts dementia can have on those closest to us and empower them to
help make a difference by playing this innovative new mobile game (SEA HERO QUEST).”
Bibo Bergeron, Animation Director
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"Our 'Life Is For Sharing' campaign has gone beyond participating in a memorable moment, to allowing people to
actively be part of the solution to a global health problem. This project demonstrates how collaboration now
goes beyond brands and institutions to making consumers partners in the future. We are proving that great things do
happen when people start to share."
Jason Romeyko, Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi
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“All of the gameplay data collected will be anonymised and stored securely within T-Systems data center in Germany
to ensure data integrity and data privacy according to German data security law, one of the strictest in Europe.”
Bernhard Murtz, Product Manager AppAgile at T-Systems
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DEUTSCHE TELEKOM PRESENTS ‘SEA HERO QUEST’
EXTENDED Q&A
1. The campaign
a. Why have Deutsche Telekom chosen to support dementia?
b. Would it not have been more beneficial to donate the money spent on the development of the
game to existing dementia charities or research programmes?
c. Why have Deutsche Telekom chosen to create a mobile game?
2. Dementia
a. What is the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia?
b. Who is affected by dementia?
c. What causes dementia?
d. What treatments are available for dementia?
e. What is spatial navigation?
3. Overview of dementia drug trials
4. Data collection
a. What kind of data will be collected?
b. What is meant by anonymous navigation data?
c. How is the data collected?
d. How and where is the data stored?
e. Who owns the data?
f. What will happen to the data once it has been collected?
5. The game
a. Who developed the game?
b. How does the game aid dementia research?
c. Is the game a test for dementia?
d. Can I play the game if I don’t have dementia?
e. How old do I need to be to play Sea Hero Quest?
f. Why do you ask players what country they live in?
g. Why do you ask players to confirm their age?
h. Why do you ask players to confirm their gender?
i. Why the game is useful for science, when the elderly most probably will not play the game,
only young people who are not affected by dementia?
j. What is meant by ‘benchmark’?
k. How was the game designed?
l. What is the difference between each of the levels?
m. How does the game work/ how is the gameplay translated into scientific data?
n. How long do I need to play for in order to make a difference/contribute to research?
o. How do you substantiate these equivalent data generation stats?
p. What platforms is the game available on / can I play online or do I need to download it?
q. How much does the game cost?
r. Are there any in app purchases?
s. How much data will I use playing the game (what will be the cost to the customer of the
science data being collected)?
t. What is the Apple Research Kit?
u. Will the Apple Research Kit pass on data to third parties?
1. THE CAMPAIGN
Q/Why have Deutsche Telekom chosen to support dementia?
A/ According the Global Alzheimer’s Report 2015, over 47 million people are living with dementia
worldwide. That is more than the population of Spain. This number is estimated to increase to 135 million
by 2050 (Source: Alzheimer’s Disease, International Policy Brief for Heads of Government, The Global
Impact of Dementia 2013–2050).
For people living with dementia the formation of new memories is severely disrupted, often leaving them
isolated, disorientated and disconnected. It is a condition that robs those we love of their ability to share in
our most precious moments. Deutsche Telekom believes that life is for sharing and that innovative
technology, new services, and new ideas have the ability to transform everyone’s lives for the better.
We believe that it is our responsibility as one of Europe’s largest telecommunication companies to
consistently challenge ourselves to find new ways to harness the power of our network and our services for
the greater good.
We were inspired to create something that would empower people to share their time and game for good.
Through this initiative we have worked with scientists, dementia experts and game developers, empower
people to share their data and help dementia researchers around the world. This data will help scientists to
develop vital new diagnostic tests and ultimately help preserve everyone’s ability to share their most
precious moments.
Q/ Would it not have been more beneficial to donate the money spent on the development of the game
to existing dementia charities or research programmes?
A/ Dementia research desperately needs volunteers, a lack of which is slowing efforts to find new
preventions and treatments. Deutsche Telekom's aim was to create a tool by which scientists could gather
this data at both a scale and a speed that had never previously been achievable. Through mobilising people
to share their time Deutsche Telekom hopes to advance dementia research and make a real difference to
those living with dementia around the world.
Q/ Why have Deutsche Telekom chosen to create a mobile game?
A/ The largest study ever conducted into human spatial navigation had only 599* volunteers. The
constraints of conducting research studies in the lab make it very difficult and time consuming to study
groups much bigger than this. By creating a game on a mobile platform, this study has been opened up to
people all over the world. It took over 300 minutes (5 hours) in previous lab-based research to gather as
much data as we’d gather if one person played Sea Hero Quest for just 2 minutes. If 100,000 people play
the game for 2 minutes each, they would generate the equivalent of more than 50 years of similar, labbased research.
*Bohbot, V., McKenzie, S., Konishi, K., Fouquet, C., Kurdi, V., Schachar, R., Boivin, M. and Robaey, P.
(2012). Virtual navigation strategies from childhood to senescence: evidence for changes across the life
span. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 4.
2. DEMENTIA
Q/ What is the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia?
A/ Dementia is not a disease in itself. Dementia is a word used to describe a group of symptoms that occur
when brain cells stop working properly. This happens inside specific areas of the brain, which can affect
how you think, remember and communicate.
There are many different forms, or causes, of dementia. Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of
dementia and may contribute to 60–70% of cases. Other major forms include vascular dementia, dementia
with Lewy bodies (abnormal aggregates of protein that develop inside nerve cells), and a group of diseases
that contribute to frontotemporal dementia (degeneration of the frontal lobe of the brain). The boundaries
between different forms of dementia are indistinct and mixed forms often co-exist.
http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/about-dementia/types-of-dementia/
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs362/en/
Q/ Who is affected by dementia?
A/ Worldwide, 47.5 million people have dementia and there are 7.7 million new cases every year. Although
dementia mainly affects older people, it is not a normal part of ageing. It doesn’t discriminate – dementia is
a condition that can affect anyone regardless of background, education, lifestyle or status. Dementia has
physical, psychological, social and economical impact on caregivers, families and society.
Q/ What causes dementia?
A/ Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells. This damage interferes with the ability of brain cells to
communicate with each other. When brain cells cannot communicate normally, thinking, behavior and
feelings can be affected.
The brain has many distinct regions, each of which is responsible for different functions (for example,
memory, judgment and movement). When cells in a particular region are damaged, that region cannot carry
out its functions normally.
Q/ What treatments are available for dementia?
A/ There are no treatments to stop the diseases that cause dementia – while some treatments can help
people to live with their symptoms a little better, there are no treatments that slow or stop diseases like
Alzheimer’s. This means that the diseases will continue to get worse over time unless new treatments can
be found quickly.
Q/ What is spatial navigation?
A/ The ability to navigate through an environment.
3. DRUG TRIALS OVERVIEW
There are currently several drug trials under way investigating how disease modifying substances can
change the progression of dementia. A particular focus is on a neurotransmitter called acetylcholin, which
is important for boosting memory in the brain. Other drugs are trying to target the specific protein changes
(amyloid, tau) in dementia to stop the disease in its tracks. For example, there are some drugs which are
trying to remove the excess of these proteins from the brain. None of these drugs are currently available in
general practice (e.g. NHS) but are purely experimentally tested in small drug trials. Unfortunately, at this
stage, none of these drugs has been shown to slow down or stop the disease completely, which highlights
the fact for further urgent drug and disease modifying developments in dementia.
4. DATA COLLECTION
Q/What kind of data will be collected?
A/ As you navigate your way through each level, information about how you navigate is collected, without
interrupting your game play in any way. At the end of each session, anonymous navigation data is collected
and sent to a scientific database. For players who wish to provide more in depth information to add value to
the research data, there is the opportunity to enter info on sex, age and which country you live in.
All of this data is anonymous and will only be collected if you enter your details. This is not required to play
the game. You can opt-out in the settings menu at any time.
When using the App, servers temporarily record the IP address of your device and other technical features.
This data is erased after each internet session and not be linked to the in-game data.
Q/ What is meant by anonymous navigation data?
A/The data collected will have no connection to your name, phone number, device or social profiles. None
of the data collected can be traced to a specific player. When you play the game, we will be tracking your
progress as you navigate, but we won't store any details that can identify you. Even if you decide to share
more of your details (age/gender/country) this will all be done completely anonymously.
Q/ How and where is the data stored?
A/ The data is stored in a secure T-Systems server in Germany. The application is managed by T-Systems'
scalable Docker offering called AppAgile which is operated out of T-Systems' datacenter to ensure data
integrity and data privacy according to German data security law, one of the strictest in Europe. When you
play the game, we will be tracking your progress as you navigate, but we won't store any details that can
identify you. Even if you decide to share your personal details (age/gender/country) this will all be done
completely anonymously.
Q/ Who owns the data?
A/ The data will be owned by Deutsche Telekom and then licensed to University College London for
analysis. Other scientists can request permission to use this data, because this database is relevant for
scientists working on dementia research around the world.
Q/ What will happen to the data once it has been collected?
A/ After the data is collected it will be accessed by UCL scientists who will extract and analyse it.
5. THE GAME
Q/ Who developed the game?
A/ The development of the game was led by Saatchi & Saatchi London & games developers Glitchers, on
behalf of Deutsche Telekom. Collaborators on the project included University College London, The
University of East Anglia and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Q/ How does the game aid dementia research?
A/ According to the Global Alzheimer’s Report 2015, dementia is a growing global health crisis that will
affect 135M people by 2050 (Source: Alzheimer’s Disease, International Policy Brief for Heads of
Government, The Global Impact of Dementia 2013–2050).
There is currently no cure for dementia and scientists still know very little about what causes it. However,
they know that one of the first effects of the condition is a loss of navigational skills. Scientists need to find
out more about how the human brain works whilst navigating in order to identify what goes wrong during
the onset of dementia.
Sea Hero Quest will generate the largest ever crowd-sourced global benchmark for how humans navigate.
This database will help us identify the brain’s capacity for orientation/spatial awareness, on a mass global
level, creating a global benchmark of normal, unaffected people.
The development of such a benchmark is widely acknowledged as one of the key steps towards developing
new diagnostic tests for the diseases that cause dementia. Improving our ability to detect the earliest signs
of the disease will play a key role in effectively deploying new drugs and managing the disease. These will
offer some hope of being able to slow the effects of Alzheimer’s (the most common cause of dementia).
Q/ Is the game a test for dementia?
A/ No, the game is not a test for dementia. The game is for everybody. If you are worried about having
symptoms of dementia, please see your doctor.
Q/ Can I play the game if I don’t have dementia?
A/ Yes, Sea Hero Quest has not been designed for those with dementia, it has been designed to gather
data on the average person's ability to navigate.
Q/ How old do I need to be to play Sea Hero Quest?
Sea Hero Quest can be played by anyone, however due to the scientific ethics regulations of our science
partners only the data of players aged18 and above will be used as part of the data analysis.
Q/ Why do you ask people what country they live in?
Previous research shows that people from different geographical backgrounds can sometimes navigate
differently. Therefore, by asking this question we may be able to prove or disprove the theory that the way
people navigate correlates with the country or region they live in.
Q/ Why do you ask players to confirm their age?
We ask for players to confirm their age in order to investigate if navigation ability changes over the lifetime.
This will be important to determine whether there is a difference between healthy young and elderly which
has implications for early detection of dementia.
Q/ Why do you ask players to confirm their gender?
This is a standard question in scientific research studies of this kind. There have been suggestions that men
and women navigate differently but there is no evidence on a population level, which we will establish once
we have analysed the data collected through the game.
Q/ Why is the game useful for science, when the elderly most probably will not play the game, only
young people who are not affected by dementia?
A/ Sea Hero Quest is not a test for dementia, nor is it designed to be played by those who have the
condition. It has been designed for people of all ages to play, providing scientists with data on how the
average human brain's ability to navigate.
It is only by creating this rich population-level understanding of human navigational abilities that we will be
able to effectively compare and detect the problems experienced by people with dementia. "Control
participants" (those unaffected by disease) are a crucial part of research in any health area, allowing us to
see the differences between those affected by disease and the healthy population, and to zero in on solving
the problems for patients.
Q/ What is meant by ‘benchmark’?
A/ A benchmark is a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed. In
this case the benchmark refers to the standard ability of humans to navigate through environments.
Q/ How was the game designed?
A/ Sea Hero Quest was designed as part of a close collaboration between game designers and scientists.
Each level was crafted in order to provide valuable insight to science, while still being an enjoyable, casual
game. In order to achieve a seamless symbiosis of science and gaming, Glitchers designed and developed
‘Sea Hero Quest’ alongside UCL - Dr Hugo Spiers and Prof Michael Hornberger (University of East Anglia),
with the contribution of the following people/institutions: Ruth Dalton - Northumbria University, Jan Weiner Bournemouth University, Christoph Hölscher - ETH Zurich, Veronique Bohbot - McGill University, Saber
Sami - University of Cambridge, Ricardo Silva - University College London, Ed Manley - University College
London
Q/ What is the difference between each of the levels?
A/ Sea Hero Quest has 4 types of levels:
Navigational levels - these are the levels where you are asked to steer your boat through a maze from
point A to point B. This analyses how people's brain navigates through space, and the decisions they make
while orientating themselves in a 3D space.
Flare levels - players are asked to shoot a flare back to where they started off, so that scientists
understand how well people can trace back their starting point.
Creature levels: these are the bit of fun in the game - no science is being collected, but it helps tie the
science together with the overall game narrative as well as objective inside the game world.
Q/ How does the game work/ how is the gameplay translated into scientific data?
A/ Data about the player’s path is collected on a grid 2 times every second (0.5 seconds). The player can
move freely around the world but we only capture which cell they are in. Coordinates start from the lowerleft and increase x & y going to the right and up. We also capture their orientation in 16 discrete steps (every
22.5°) ‘North’ is 0°, East in 90° etc. working clockwise.
Q/ How long do I need to play for in order to make a difference/contribute to research?
A/ Sea Hero Quest collects data approximately 150 times more quickly than traditional research means.
Playing Sea Hero Quest for 2 minutes equates to 5 hours of similar, lab-based research. If 100,000 people
play for 2 mins each we can generate the equivalent of more than 50 years of similar, lab-based research.
*based on figures estimated by Spiers Lab UCL, London, UK
Q/ How do you substantiate these equivalent data generation stats?
A/ The claims were based on the following parameters:
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Traditional research – 1 data point collected per minute
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Mobile game – 150 data points collected per minute
This indicates that with Sea Hero Quest we will be conducting research 150 times quicker the traditional
means. Therefore the amount of data collected in two minutes will have taken five hours to collect in
previous experiments of its kind.
The previous largest biggest example of a study that studied navigational choices is by Veronique Bohbot,
another collaborator on this project*. This had 599 participants and collected one data point per
minute.Due to the fact that in Sea Hero Quest we are able to use sophisticated machine learning methods
to make sense and analyse every turn of the boat, we expect to collect about 150 choices in orientation per
minute.
*Bohbot, V., McKenzie, S., Konishi, K., Fouquet, C., Kurdi, V., Schachar, R., Boivin, M. and Robaey, P.
(2012). Virtual navigation strategies from childhood to senescence: evidence for changes across the life
span. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 4.
Q/ What platforms is the game available on / can I play online or do I need to download it?
A/ Sea Hero Quest is a mobile game designed to be played on a mobile or tablet device. You cannot play
Sea Hero Quest on desktop. Sea Hero Quest is available to download for free from the App Store and
Google Play. The game is available to download worldwide.
Q/ How much does the game cost?
A/ The game is free to download.
Q/ Are there any in app purchases?
A/ There are no in app purchases in Sea Hero Quest. We only want you to donate your time not your
money.
Q/ How much data will I use playing the game (what will be the cost to the customer of the science
data being collected)?
The amount of data that gets transferred is approximately 1-3kb per level.
If a user plays 1 area (12 levels collecting data for scientific research) the amount of data that gets
transferred is approximately 30-40kb.
If they play 3 areas – this equates to approximately 90kb. To give a comparison: Looking at pics in your
social media – e.g. instagram – needs more than 90kb.
Q/ What is the Apple Research Kit?
It is an open source software framework designed for medical and health research, helping doctors and
scientists gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants using iOS apps.
Q/ Will the Apple Research Kit pass on data to third parties?
No. The Apple Research Kit is simply a way to formalise the asking of research questions within an iOS app.
All anonymous data collected in the app securely goes directly to a T-Systems server and is accessed only
by contracted scientists, i.e. from University College London and their nominated scientists for scientific
reasons.
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM
SEA HERO QUEST: MULTIMEDIA MATERIAL
DIGITAL PRESS KIT
Media information as well as picture and video material can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/GameforGood
--------VIDEO MATERIAL
!! Campaign movie (90’): https://youtu.be/jm1SyEi0Qis
!! Project movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc3jORxvjm4
--------PICTURES
Experts and partners
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Hans-Christian Schwingen (Credits: Deutsche Telekom AG)
Dr Hugo Spiers
Prof Michael Hornberger
Hilary Evans
Max Scott-Slade
“Sea Hero Quest”
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Key visual
Screenshots game play
Visuals of “Sea Hero Quest” game
Science maps
Logo
Copyright „Sea Hero Quest“ pictures: Deutsche Telekom
Logos of “Sea Hero Quest“ and partners
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Deutsche Telekom AG
University College London
University of East Anglia
Glitchers
Alzheimer’s Research UK
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