"Outbreak" from Ahoot Media

New game from Grenaa: Fight viruses, bacteria and parasites

In an all new game, which is being developed by aHoot Media, high school students are trying to try to be disease-fighting researchers and epidemiologists, who fight viruses, bacteria and parasites.

The game is not about the coronavirus specifically, but about pandemics in general. Ahoot have been working on the idea for years, but the corona pandemic overtook the game developers. The company already applied for financing from the Novo Nordisk Foundation in March of 2020.

Since March, the corona virus has been the agenda in Denmark, as in many other parts of the world. Currently a new learning game is being developed by a Danish company focusing on pandemics.

Throughout the game, high school students must take on the role of researchers and epidemiologists, where they must fight disease pathogens.

Games are a huge toy box, says Lars Tornbjerg, game designer at Ahoot Media.

And that is precisely why the company has developed the game. The learning game must create a meaningful and challenging framework for the students, who, through their own experiences in the game, have the opportunity to experiment and explore a biological system and thus gain an understanding of pandemics.

The game has been underway for several years, but has now become far more relevant than the inventors had ever thought. They applied for funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation in March this year.

“Our deadline was the day when Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen closed the country down. This has of course made our application much more relevant than we actually thought it should be”, says Lars Tornbjerg.

The developers and people behind the activities at Ahoot Media.

Fund support

The gamedevelopement company was thus not the only ones who found the game relevant. The Novo Nordisk Foundation supports the project with 350,000 Danish Kroners, which is approximately 55.000 American Dollars. This creates great joy for Ahoot.

In the spring, the game will be released for free to all Danish high schools without commercials, but before the release, the game will be tested in the city of Grenaa, where the company has roots. Viden Djurs has been allowed to test the game while it is in development. It is their local college students who gets to be involved in testing.

“Games for teaching are not only for young children, but also for students all the way up to high school. And we already have more in the pipeline, so they can expect great things”, says Bo Thomas Michelsen, who is a former biologist and pedagogy trained high school teacher.