Yesterday I started developing a website and Android game that has to do with my positive symptom of schizophrenia: having intrusive, repetitive thoughts. I haven't actually begun implementing the website/game yet. The domain name of the website will be www.twirt.org, and it will (at first) be implemented entirely in HTML and JavaScript.
The website has a Generate button and a thought counter (which defaults to N = 3) at the top of the screen. Pressing Generate displays N random sentences which all belong to my grammar of crazy thoughts. The first word of the first sentence is highlighted in purple. Arrow keys navigate within the words of the sentences or display a higher-level non-terminal symbol (enclosed in angle brackets), and the down arrow is not used. Pressing Enter displays a list of lower-level words/non-terminal symbols, and the up/down arrows are used to navigate within this list. Pressing Enter when that list is displayed substitutes the current non-terminal symbol in the current sentence with the current list element.
The object of the Android game (which is a free download) is to parse the target sentence which
belongs to my grammar of crazy thoughts and is displayed at the bottom
of the screen. Random words/non-terminal symbols slowly fall down from
the top of the screen and your job is to parse the target sentence
(beginning with the start symbol: <sentence>). Whenever a falling
word/symbol matches what you're currently parsing, it disappears and you
get points (more points if multiple words/symbols are falling). If a
falling symbol reaches the bottom your energy level is eroded. When the
target sentence is completely parsed, a new sentence appears. Users can
edit the default grammar or create a brand-new grammar, and upload those grammars to twirt.org so other users can download them and parse those grammars within my game.
When
parsing the target sentence, tapping a word matches a falling word (if
any), and dragging a non-terminal symbol upwards displays a list of
lower-level grammar elements. Tapping a list element selects it.
Dragging a word/non-terminal symbol downwards displays a higher-level
non-terminal symbol. Many details of the game have yet to be worked out.
The purpose of developing this website and game is for me to get my 15 minutes of fame. If I become famous then I can educate the public about schizophrenia and my experiences of being a consumer/survivor. Maybe I will even write an autobiography. One of my computer students is a Portuguese fellow named Luis, and I helped him self-publish his autobiography (both English and Portuguese versions) on Amazon and Lulu.com. He also has schizophrenia.
