Alzheimer's Australia Vic

Pledge with us and you will be making a difference to the lives of the 330,000 Australians and the many more people all over the world living with dementia.

Alzheimer’s Australia Vic, working with game developers Opaque Multimedia, have developed a prototype virtual forest video game designed to create a sensory therapeutic environment enabling people with dementia to experience and interact with the soothing virtual reality of a forest. With your support, we will be able to bring this serene environment to aged care facilities and private homes around Australia and across the world.

The funds generated through this campaign will enable the full construction of the forest environment and the introduction of a set of interactions with seasonal and climatic changes designed to be dramatic and stimulate the senses for the person living with dementia.

The forest will be constructed using Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, assuring high fidelity, immersive visuals and environments without enormous costs. With the support of Epic and their industry-leading game engine, incredibly sophisticated and immersive environments are possible.



This is a world first use of Unreal Engine 4 in a serious games project, placing us on the cutting edge of using games for good.

There will be no complicated buttons or coordination needed – just a sway of the arms will make the sun rise or the wind blow through the trees, or even a season change from sunshine to snow; a clap of the hands will cause the leaves to fall or the birds to fly up. The aim through the use of this sensory therapy process is to enable people living with dementia to experience a sense of awe, wonder and fun in their everyday lives.

This simplicity in control is made possible through the use of the Xbox One and its Kinect sensor.

Microsoft has supported the project with Xbox One and Kinect development tools. The Kinect allows users to control the environment in natural, intuitive ways – a wave of their hands or a simple command can produce wondrous changes in the virtual world. The combination of Xbox One, Kinect and Smart Glass allows family and professional carers easy set-up and control over the application without disrupting normal activities or the immersiveness of the environment.

Imagine if every aged care facility or private home were to have a virtual reality games room through the use of televisions and standard game consoles – it is the future we can create together.

The highest level rewards will include your name or that of a loved one carved into a tree like a love heart and arrow, or even a company name to be on the entry sign along the forest path, or perhaps on a plaque on the park bench.

The smaller amounts will give you that special, crowd funding warm and fuzzy cyber feeling or a preview digital copy of the game.

What the media are saying

The next big idea

Why you should support our campaign

With your support we can convert this game from prototype to reality with interactions, greatly increased fidelity, the types of environment, experiences.

The attention to detail and authenticity of the imagery will strengthen the emotional connection – making it seem as real as a video game can be – totally immersing the user into the game – and ultimately making a difference to the lives of people living with dementia.

That is what’s driving us.

By supporting this initiative, backers will be helping to break new ground in the use of virtual sensory therapy for people with dementia. Unreal Engine 4 is a next-generation video game technology.
The virtual environment in development now is being designed from the ground up specifically for people with dementia.

Our team have already had the experience of creating a simulated home environment, so are aware of many of the risks involved. New challenges will always arise, and we welcome these as opportunities to continue innovating and creating new ways of making a difference to the quality of life for those impacted by dementia. Our team has the experience and the skills to deal with them.

No-one else is doing anything like this in the world so there is no 'rule book' to follow – Alzheimer’s Australia Vic is writing the book and breaking new ground in this area!