Therap is holding several conferences this fall. We, the Design Team have been working on some cool designs and banners tailor-made just for these events. We are brainstorming on how to make Therap visually more attractive and at the same time delivering the intended message effectively. Here are some of the shots taken after the designs were printed out in large vinyls. If you happen to be taking part in our conferences this fall, you will surely come across them.

:: Dhanad ::

North South University’s Computer Club organized an IT Fair here at one of Dhaka’s largest convention center. The two day long fair aptly named NSU IT Fair 2008 drew quite a good number crowd from various walks of life. The visitors of the fair included mostly university graduates, freshers, job-seekers, IT specialists and entrepreneurs, just to name a few. The fair comprised of various established IT firms from around the capital city. Internet service providers, software development companies, logistic support providers and business solution experts were among the many categories of firms that were present there. Most of them were there either to market their business solutions, or mainly to broadcast themselves to potential customers.

We were lucky to get the very first booth and that too was placed just after the entrance to the fair. The best part was that everyone visiting the fair could not help, but notice us. I should add that our bright and lively banners did nothing less than arouse their curiosity. There were mainly two groups of people that visited our stall. One group was who knew about Therap beforehand and wanted to learn more. They had questions ranging from recruiting and our operations to how we work and what technologies we use. The other group was the one who met us for the first time or heard about us from other sources. They were quite interested in what we do and were not afraid to ask questions.

We were busy handing out flyers and catalogs which I would say worked out quite well. At day’s end we were quite satisfied with the responses we received.

:: Dhanad ::

Therap recently signed a MOU with some NGO’s and the Government of Bangladesh to create a national database for people with disabilities. This pilot project is the first step that will assist in formulating national policies for people with disabilities. Once under operation, the project will aim to collect data from various districts across Bangladesh.

We here at Therap’s Design Team are proud to be a part of this project as we were involved in engineering the entire user interface for the software. The information used in the interface were directly translated from a paper based form. We worked together with the Training and Implementation Team to make sure everything in terms of content was in proper order.

The following screens are still in its initial stage and the final product may differ in terms of content and layout.

:: Dhanad ::

DSP on Planet Ehtpar version 0.1.0 has been released on the first week of June and as always it went through several fixes, tweaks and optimization. That’s not all, the game now boasts all new features such as ability to select any of the four in-game characters or virtual DSPs. Apart from the mainstream training levels there are several mini-games to play around with. In-game cinematics are now highly optimized for faster loading times. Most levels are now equipped with hints in case you forget what to do in certain scenarios or situations. If you have played DSP on Planet Ehtpar before then you will almost instantly feel the enhancements made to certain areas of the game.

We are pleased to bring you the latest version of our 3D training game named DSP on Planet Ehtpar, which sports all new training levels, enhanced look and feel and changes based on our user feedback. Thanks to everyone for their support and constructive criticism which helped us make a even better training tool. We mentioned in our first release that this training game will evolve over the period as we add more features into the game.

The game traveled a long way from version 0.0.6 to the latest one 0.0.8. To highlight some new areas or levels in the game, here are some screenshots.

Several new tasks, real-life scenarios and decision making situations have been implemented in this release. The game now focuses on training users how to report incidents using appropriate choices from the Therap General Event Report (GER) module. Users are placed in real-life decision making scenarios, like in case of fire breaks out what should be done under certain circumstances. Like this, there are several more scenarios or situations which the player has to deal with - which ultimately training the player to use Therap GER feature properly to document events and also at the same time practice making proper choices within a limited amount of time.

DSP on Planet Ehtpar is a completely new approach to interactive training for the care providers, DSPs and nurses. This game is the first of it’s kind amongst the host of other training materials already available for the Therap application.

The process of developing such a game required a lot of research and braining storming, team effort, creativity, open discussions and of course playing and testing, just to name a few. Coming up with a good storyboard is very important as you not only have to make it informative and yet entertaining but also to make sure the message is being delivered the way intended. That is the first phase of the development, and is usually a collaborative effort between the Training and Implementation Team and the US Team.

After the initial development of the storyboard, the Training and Implementation Team works together with the Design Team and this is where we brainstorm on how we will present the storyboard and come up with new ideas. The brainstorming session is followed by the concept sketch phase where we use all the ideas brought to light during the discussions and sketch them out to achieve a visual representation. We then take the sketches and apply computer generated coloring technique in order to give them more life.

The next phase involves in modeling the concept sketches in the form of 3D (Three Dimensional) models. This enables us to make the characters and objects appear more life-like. The final rendered models are then passed onto the Flash developers. They use these models in their game development tools and integrate them with other similar objects to re-create the environment. This is one of the most important part of the development phase where character interaction in the game is created and how the game will respond based on certain user input. After the integration it is time to thoroughly test the game and check if it plays the way it is meant to. The game is tested for side effects, instability, bugs, usability and ofcourse if it conforms to the original storyboard and design guideline.

Here’s a small video clip taken during the various game development stages.

Therap Services will be hosting a Game Development Contest 2008 this summer. Students from some of the well known universities in Dhaka, Bangladesh have been invited to participate in this event and showcase their creativity and game development skills by making a short Flash based game within a day. Professional designers or game developers are also welcome to participate.

Richard A. Robbins, CEO & Chairman of Therap Services, LLC. during his stay in Bangladesh hosted several sessions in these universities where he talked about Therap and the Game Development Contest itself.

The beautiful part of this event is that all the great talents will get to meet each other, share their ideas and of course the winners of this contest will be offered a position in the Design Team as a game developer at Therap (BD) Ltd. We are looking forward to this exciting event and will post more details as the day of the event draws near.

We recently made few designs for the official Therap buttons, among which the one below was chosen based on color usage, design and clarity. We are really excited how it will turn out when materialized.

We are pleased to announce that we have a new addition to our training games collection. The game “DSP on Planet Ehtpar” developed by Therap Services was released today and is listed on our Support Home page of our Biz Site.

It is essentially a training game and something more. It is focused on helping the users become familiar with various aspects of the Therap application. There are several missions in the game, like how to make strong passwords, how to use the T-Log section just to name a few.

This is just the first version of the game, and that means it will continue to evolve in terms of playability, interactivity, entertainment and most of all as an effective training material.

Therap Training Games - aimed to facilitate the end-users (care providers, DSPs, nurses) better understand how to use the Therap application effectively through an interactive and a fun way. One such game, titled “DSP on Planet Ehtpar” is currently being developed by the Design Team and is almost near completion.

The game focuses on how to create strong passwords, also lets the player drag and drop sample passwords on the screen into it’s appropriate box (see the image above) and correct answer yields a certain point and so on . The game also tests the player’s understanding of the T-Log section by asking the player to choose appropriate options. The coolest part would be the “shoot-em-up” where you have this gun to shoot down martian attackers in their small saucers within a given time. If you want to know more you will just have to play the game to find out.