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How Do You Make a Children’s Hospital Feel Less Intimidating?
Overview
A hospital visit can feel overwhelming for an adult. For a child? Multiply that by unfamiliar rooms, strange sounds, new faces, medical equipment, procedures, and a whole lot of waiting around.
CHRISTUS Children's Hospital wanted to create a digital experience that could help young patients feel more comfortable and engaged throughout their hospital stay. The goal was to build familiarity with the hospital, support pediatric patient engagement, and return a sense of choice and control to kids navigating an environment where many decisions are made for them.
Building a Hospital Game Kids Would Actually Want to Play
The Virtual Wild designed and developed a custom Unity game that turns CHRISTUS Children’s Hospital into a colorful digital world filled with familiar places, playful challenges, and one very important four-legged companion.
Inspired by the hospital’s real therapy dog program, the experience gives each player a customizable virtual puppy to care for and explore with. Children can personalize their companion before setting out into a digital environment inspired by actual CHRISTUS Children’s Hospital landmarks including the painted cow, murals, bridge, fountain, surrounding park, and recognizable architectural details.
By discovering digital versions of places and objects they may see during their stay, children can begin interacting with the hospital environment on their own terms. The unfamiliar starts feeling recognizable, and the hospital becomes a world they can influence rather than simply move through.
Throughout the game, players can:
- Customize their virtual therapy dog with different wearable items
- Explore a colorful 3D world inspired by CHRISTUS Children’s Hospital
- Heal wilted flowers and restore parts of the environment
- Search for hidden bones and special collectibles
- Interact with recognizable hospital artwork and landmarks
- Fill their puppy’s happiness meter and unlock celebratory animations
- Discover digital healthcare tools inside a virtual Care Kit
- Play touch-based mini-games, including Paws-itive Energy
Accessibility was baked into the experience, not sprinkled on at the end. A simple virtual joystick and tap-based actions let players navigate and interact using minimal physical movement. Adjustable language, sound, volume, and control settings help accommodate different patient needs and playing environments.
We also created the account, login, and progress systems needed to support ongoing play. Returning patients can access saved player data, continue exploring, and build on their previous progress. An integrated analytics framework tracks activity such as sessions, dwell time, interactions, and gameplay events, giving CHRISTUS a foundation for understanding how young patients engage with the experience.
More Than Healthcare Gamification
The finished experience gives young patients a playful, interactive way to connect with CHRISTUS Children’s Hospital during moments of waiting, uncertainty, or extended care.
For CHRISTUS Children’s Hospital, the game provides more than entertainment. It is a pediatric patient engagement tool that supports the hospital’s mission of caring for the body and spirit while giving staff another way to introduce familiarity, comfort, and play into the patient experience.
The scalable Unity foundation was built to grow with new environments, collectibles, mini-games, educational activities, and patient engagement opportunities. Gameplay analytics also give CHRISTUS the ability to evaluate how patients use the experience and identify opportunities for future development.
The result is an expandable interactive platform designed to make pediatric care feel more approachable, more familiar, and (because kids deserve it) a whole lot more fun.
Designed for comfort. Built for growth. Created to make the hospital journey a little less scary and a lot more wild.
