Psoriasis, the Game

This is the introduction for a simple online game about psoriasis.

In this game, you are playing a dermatologist to a very strange patient. You will be prescribing medications for the patient, and every two weeks will get a chance to see how well the patient is doing, and change prescriptions until you reach the goal of “complete remission.”

Of course, it’s not that easy. The patient refuses to show you the symptoms, and will only report back “clearing” (which means you’ve selected the correct medication for a body section) or “improvement” (which means you’ve selected a correct medication, but for the wrong body section). You can see some examples, below.

So every two weeks, you’ll select four medications (one for the head, one for the body, one for arms and one for legs) out of a list of ten. It is possible that one medication is correct for more than one body section. And, of course, at least six of the ten medications will have no effect at all.

The medications that the patient needs for complete remission will not change during the game. Your job in the game is to deduce which medications the patient needs. Preferrably in as little time as possible.

Please note: This is a little JavaScript game, and not an example of nor an indictment of any particular dermatologist’s practice or of mainstream dermatology in general.

Examples:

Let’s say that the medications your patient needs are steroids for his head, coal tar for his body, and UVB for both his arms and legs.

If you were to prescribe salt water for his head, PUVA for his body, anthralin for his arms and hyperthermia for his legs, you would get “No effect” since all of your prescriptions would be flat-out wrong.

If you were to prescribe salt water for his head, PUVA for his body, anthralin for his arms and steroids for his legs, your patient would say, “One improvement,” since the steroids are one of the required medications, but prescribed for the wrong part of his body.

If you were to prescribe UVB for his head, PUVA for his body, anthralin for his arms and hyperthermia for his legs, your patient would say, “One improvement,” since the UVB is one of the required medications, but prescribed for the wrong part of his body, and you prescribed it only once.

Finally, if you were to prescribe coal tar for every body section, your patient would say, “One clearing and three improvements,” since the coal tar is only needed in one spot. Conversely, if your patient needed coal tar all over, but you only prescribed it once, your patient would say, “One clearing.”