Serious Impact

The educational game Letterprins has won two prestigious awards at the annual Digital Impact Awards in London. The game won awards in two categories: 'Best Use of Data' and 'Best Use of Mobile and/or Corporate App'. Letterprins encourages children to read. The awards are an important recognition of Letterprins' impact and innovation in promoting literacy among young readers. The game was developed in collaboration with Radboud University, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Sardes, OPM Nijmegen and Vertigo 6.

Radboud University Medical Center (Radboudumc) in Nijmegen is carrying out a study to see whether an app can motivate people with Parkinson's disease to move more. IJsfontein's goal is to get 500 people to take more steps over a one year period compared to their baseline measurement. For this purpose, they install an app on their phone that counts their steps and reminds them to move, making it easier and motivating them to make progress.

In the dementia simulation Into D'mentia: the Cabin, you step into the shoes of someone with incipient dementia. The aim: to give care professionals and informal carers an insight into the perspective of people with dementia. In the cabin, you are actively engaged in a realistic setting. You see, act and think like someone with incipient dementia. So you experience the uncertainty and disorientation and confusing misunderstandings with your carer that people with dementia have on a daily basis. Between 2012 and 2022, more than ten thousand care professionals and informal carers used this touring cabin to learn how to better care for people with dementia. A Danish version was also created for education.

Together with the Museum of Literature, we designed the exhibition Back Street. The goal: getting young people to read. How? By getting them to experience how many books there are on things that concern them. We translated ten topics important to young people into ten games: on dating, exploring boundaries, standing up for what you believe in, and so on. In these games, young people are introduced to different sorts of text: from biographies to spoken word; from poetry to graphic novels. Each game has its own space in the décor of a backstreet. In the Bunker, for example, you can enter an escape room of exciting stories or play a dating game in the Limousine. After your visit, you will be given book tips based on the games you played.

Imagine a place where you can travel through time and learn all about the history of the Netherlands. That is exactly what the Canon of the Netherlands at the Open Air Museum in Arnhem does. We developed this exhibition together with Kossman de Jong and Redrum. Step back in time and explore 10 time periods, from hunebedden to today. You see everything through the eyes of people who were there themselves. What was it like for a child to work in a factory? And how did people get food in World War II? You discover it by doing, feeling, watching and playing. We made 25 games and interactive installations, a life-size Canon wall and three Panorama films.

The University of Utrecht is committed to sustainability. IJsfontein developed the game Utrecht 2040 which challenges students to develop a vision of sustainability from the perspective of their future profession. This multiplayer game is played on your phone during the introduction week in Utrecht.

You have a company with a lot of employees. As they say, the more the merrier! However, that might also mean more dischord. How can you make sure that everyone works well together, keeps one another sharp, that no opportunities are missed, and that people are not continually reinventing the wheel? In other words, how do you ensure that everything continues to run optimally?

Rhenus Contract Logistics is a large distribution company with numerous branches in Europe. To guarantee their high-quality services, they depend on motivated and trained employees who reflect their company values. In collaboration with UpTrek, Rhenus designed a training tool that guarantees a fun way of learning that helps employees grow, work on their competencies and scale up their performance.

Every organisation struggles when it comes to new employees. How do you make them feel welcome, help them get up to speed on what they need to know, and yet not lose their fresh eye on things? And this puzzle gets even trickier when this involves large groups of new employees every month.

How do you find out somebody's superpowers? How do you get someone to experience what they can do better? You could observe them for a while or have them fill out a questionnaire, of course, but you can also do it with a game! That said, the game has to give us enough space to let us see what is needed!

In close cooperation with the Trimbos Institute, we developed the serious game Moving Stories, a game that helps young people to recognize and discuss depression in themselves and others. During development, the game was tested several times with end users and experts.

The National AYA 'Young & Cancer' Platform, NFK and IJsfontein developed 'Match', an app that keeps family and friends involved with the Adolescent & Young Adult with cancer (AYA) in an accessible way. During its development, we involved the target group as often as possible to make sure the app actually had an impact. In the final phase, five AYAs tried the app for three weeks, so that we could measure what effect the app had over a longer period of time.

In Leopoldsburg, Belgium, where ‘Operation Market Garden’ began, the Liberation Garden museum opened in May 2023. We made five interactives for it. Meet people from the war, experience what it is like to take shelter during a bombardment, and fly in a Spitfire over the Siegfried Line with VR glasses. The exhibition shows that history is not just a black-and-white story of right and wrong, but a complex story full of shades of grey. How? By putting not the battle, but the people at the centre of it.

At the Museum für Kommunikation, you dive into the world of how we talk to each other and all the ways we do it. With interactive games, special objects and large video projections, you will discover all about communication and how technology affects it. The exhibition was designed by Kossmann de Jong. We made twelve interactive installations, each showing a different aspect of communication, where you can do anything: sit, point, act, dance, play games, watch, design and more. Everything revolves around the question: what does communication do to you?

Every year, 100,000 patients in the Netherlands experience delirium, such as after surgery or infection. Due to unfamiliarity and lack of understanding, this condition is often not recognised and adequately treated in patients. Education is often focused on acquiring knowledge, but that isn't enough - medical students must learn to translate this knowledge into skills. The Delirium Experience has turned out to be highly effective for this, and the game also has a positive effect on the motivation of students and their involvement in caring for frail elderly people.