Adaptive Gaming Guide: ReSpawn Foundation
The Arizona State University Artificial Intelligence Cloud Innovation Center, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), collaborated with ReSpawn Foundation, a national 501(c)(3) organization advancing adaptive gaming in rehabilitation and recovery, to design Your Adaptive Gaming Guide—an AI-enabled clinical support chatbot for rehabilitation professionals and caregivers.
The solution provides centralized, clinically informed guidance to help rehabilitation teams integrate adaptive gaming into therapy workflows. By combining curated knowledge sources, bilingual accessibility, and a clinician-first user experience, Your Adaptive Gaming Guide enables more consistent, evidence-aligned use of gaming as a therapeutic intervention.
Problem
Although adaptive gaming has demonstrated therapeutic value in rehabilitation settings, adoption remains inconsistent. Clinicians report several barriers:
- Lack of centralized, reliable guidance
- Fragmented and non-standardized online resources
- Limited clarity on appropriate controllers, games, and software
- Difficulty aligning gaming activities with clinical goals and outcomes
These challenges prevent clinicians from confidently incorporating adaptive gaming into treatment plans, despite strong interest and patient demand.
Role: Full-Stack Developer | Linkedin
Experience: I designed the end-to-end architecture for ReSpawn ChatBot and led its implementation using a modern, fully serverless AWS stack. On the frontend, I built a responsive Next.js chat interface capable of handling streaming Server-Sent Events while preserving cross-session state. On the backend, I engineered a Python-based AWS Lambda service that dynamically constructs language-aware prompts and integrates with AWS Bedrock’s RetrieveAndGenerate API, including session validation, inference profile management, and resilient retry logic. The infrastructure was provisioned using AWS CDK (TypeScript), integrating API Gateway, OpenSearch Serverless for vector retrieval, and Amplify for automated frontend CI/CD and hosting- delivering a production-ready bilingual AI assistant.
Role: UI/UX Designer | Linkedin
Experience: Working from a clear mission of centralizing fragmented, inconsistently validated information, I translated clinical pain points into a chat-first interface with click-to-ask FAQ prompts, guided responses, and safety-minded microcopy. I built and iterated a high-fidelity prototype in Figma using shadcn/ui, focusing on accessibility, scannable information hierarchy, and trust signals that support evidence-informed decision-making. My responsibilities included conversation flow design, UI component patterns, interaction states, and bilingual UX considerations. The result is a low-friction entry point for clinicians to explore equipment, games, and therapy-aligned guidance quickly. This project strengthened my skills in conversational UX, healthcare design, and designing transparent, user-centered AI experiences.
Approach
The CIC team built Your Adaptive Gaming Guide as a serverless RAG chatbot on AWS with three main flows: Visitor Chat, Admin/Feedback Review, and Knowledge Ingestion.
- AI/RAG: Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases grounds answers in the adaptive-gaming knowledge set; Amazon OpenSearch Serverless provides vector storage with hybrid retrieval to surface the most relevant guidance.
- Chat API + streaming: AWS Lambda (backend) fronted by Amazon API Gateway delivers the chat experience and supports responsive UX patterns for clinician workflows.
- Knowledge ingestion & refresh: A crawl + sync pipeline ingests trusted sources - Gaming Readapted (monthly), Family Gaming Database (weekly), and GameAccess and stages content in Amazon S3 for indexing and retrieval.
- Frontend experience: A lightweight web UI aligned to ReSpawn Foundation branding (logo/colors) includes an FAQ bar and supports English/Spanish to improve accessibility for clinicians and caregivers.
- Admin & analytics loop: Feedback and conversation signals are captured for review so the team can identify gaps in clinical guidance coverage and improve source content over time.
- Infrastructure: AWS CDK provisions the end-to-end serverless stack for repeatable deployment and iteration.
Industry Impact and Problem Solving
Your Adaptive Gaming Guide helps translate adaptive gaming from an informal engagement tool into a structured component of rehabilitation therapy.
The solution supports clinicians by:
- Recommending adaptive controllers, games, and software based on patient needs
- Providing guidance on integrating gaming into occupational, physical, and recreational therapy
- Reducing uncertainty through centralized, validated information
- Supporting patient engagement and motivation through personalized, play-based interventions
“Partnering with the ASU AI CIC has been a huge step forward for ReSpawn Foundation. When someone faces a life-changing injury or illness, they often lose more than just mobility, they lose their hobbies, their friend groups, and a piece of who they are. This guide makes it easier for hospitals and therapists to help patients get back to the games they love. It's about more than just technology; it's about helping people find their independence and their community again.”
Andy J. Wu, PhD, OT | Founder and CEO | ReSpawn Foundation
Potential for Wider Application
While initially developed for rehabilitation clinicians and caregivers, the solution is designed for scalability across additional healthcare and accessibility contexts, including:
- Hospital-based rehabilitation programs
- Veterans’ health services
- Pediatric and long-term care settings
- Organizations seeking technology-enabled patient engagement tools
The modular design allows for expansion into additional languages, clinical domains, and adaptive technology ecosystems.
Supporting Artifacts
| Github Link: | Click here |
Next Steps
ReSpawn Foundation’s next step is to get this tool into hospitals and therapists where it can start making a real difference. They want to see more patients using gaming to reconnect with their friends and families. This project has shown us that AI doesn't have to be complicated or intimidating. When used correctly, it's just a better way to get the right information to the people who need it most. It has changed our perspective by showing us that technology can be a powerful bridge to help people reclaim their identity and stay connected to the world around them.
About the ASU CIC
The ASU Artificial Intelligence Cloud Innovation Center (AI CIC), powered by AWS is a no-cost design thinking and rapid prototyping shop dedicated to bridging the digital divide and driving innovation in the nonprofit, healthcare, education, and government sectors.
Our expert team harnesses Amazon’s pioneering approach to dive deep into high-priority pain points, meticulously define challenges, and craft strategic solutions. We collaborate with AWS solutions architects and talented student workers to develop tailored prototypes showcasing how advanced technology can tackle a wide range of operational and mission-related challenges.
Discover how we use technology to drive innovation. Visit our website at ASU AI CIC or contact us directly at [email protected].