![\"Glassenberg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/theproblem-20260317125627090.png\")
<\/p>\n\n When Sam Glassenberg\u2019s 5-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, the veteran video game developer found himself facing a terrifying new reality: Becoming his child\u2019s stand-in \u201cpancreas,\u201d making life-or-death insulin decisions with only \u201cconfusing\u201d instructions to guide him.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cBasically, on Friday, your life is normal,\u201d Glassenberg told CNN. \u201cAnd then on Saturday, you\u2019re responsible for injecting precisely calculated doses of a lethal drug, insulin, into your kid \u2014 and if you get it wrong, she falls into a coma.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n After his daughter spent two days in the hospital in 2019, Glassenberg said he was given a sheet of paper by the medical team with crossed out carbohydrate-to-insulin ratios, rounding rules, and correction factors. He calls it \u201cyour guide to not killing your own kid.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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\n Even as a Stanford-trained computer science engineer, Glassenberg found it confusing and frustrating, especially with the high stakes involved.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s horrible because for those first few months, you\u2019re learning through play, but that play is trial-and-error on your own kid.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n So, he did what game designers do best. He built a video game \u2014 called \u201cLevel One: A Diabetes Game\u201d \u2014 a free mobile app that has had about 50,000 downloads since its launch last April.\n <\/p>\n
\n The game has the look and feel of the popular \u201cCandy Crush Saga\u201d app, but it turns the complex science of diabetes management into an intuitive interactive game that teaches people how insulin, food, and blood sugar interact with the body.\n <\/p>\n
\n The goal is to help children and their caregivers feel less overwhelmed after diagnosis. The game has 60 levels to help people better understand diabetes concepts and introduces new ones as the player advances through the levels.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt trains your brain how to manage Type 1 diabetes,\u201d Glassenberg said. \u201cEverything you need to know; how to dose insulin, how to count carbs, how to manage ketones (chemicals produced by the liver when the body lacks blood sugar), how to deal with lows.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n More than 200 reviewers in the Apple app store<\/a> have weighed in, giving it 4.9 stars out of 5. The game was launched in partnership with leading diabetes organizations Beyond Type 1 and Breakthrough T1D Play.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019ve had Type 1 for 15 years, downloaded this game thinking it was going to be another one of those completely inaccurate silly games that just make everything more confusing,\u201d said one reviewer. \u201cBut it would definitely be helpful as a new diabetic.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Another added, \u201cI love this game sooo much! I\u2019m a Type 1 diabetic, and this game has helped me understand more!\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Glassenberg spent much of his career building teams that developed video games based on popular movies, from \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d to \u201cMission: Impossible.\u201d He had started at LucasArts working on \u201cStar Wars\u201d games.\n <\/p>\n \n As the head of the DirectX team at Microsoft, Glassenberg accepted a Technical Emmy in 2006 on behalf of his team for pushing the state of the art in interactive entertainment.\n <\/p>\n \n Glassenberg hails from a long line of doctors, including his grandfather, mother, father, aunts, uncles. When he excitedly called his father, an anesthesiologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, after winning the Emmy, his dad responded with: \u201cThat\u2019s very nice. But in this family, we only recognize Nobel Prizes.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n His father held out hope that his son would go to medical school and stop toying with games. Glassenberg plowed ahead, building the top independent game publisher in Hollywood.\n <\/p>\n \n Then, in 2012, his father called him with a challenge. His dad wanted a visual guide to help instruct doctors on how to properly insert a tube with a camera into the windpipe to maintain an open airway, a technique called fiber-optic intubation.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPut all this video game nonsense to good use,\u201d Glassenberg recalled his father saying. \u201cMake me a game to train my colleagues to do a fiber-optic intubation. It\u2019s a tricky procedure. We only do it on difficult patients.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n For three weekends, Glassenberg spent extra hours building what he called \u201cthis crappy little game for my dad.\u201d He then uploaded it to the app store.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m busy running this big independent Hollywood game studio,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think about it again.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Within two years, the iLarynx app had been downloaded more than 100,000 times<\/a>. Hospitals around the world had been using it to help doctors and found it was substantially improving physician performance<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n A spark was created. From there, Glassenberg thought: What if I brought together the top video game developers, designers, and artists who had worked on everything from \u201cMortal Kombat\u201d to \u201cDiner Dash\u201d and teamed them up with top physician advisers and hospital groups?\n <\/p>\n \n He formed the medical gaming company Level Ex with a mission \u201cto revolutionize the way physicians stay sharp in their specialties, leveraging advanced video game technology and proven cognitive neuroscience to recreate the thrills and challenges of practicing medicine.\u201d It has been named multiple times by Fast Company as one of the \u201cWorld\u2019s Most Innovative\u201d companies, most recently in 2023<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Level Ex has since been acquired by Relevate Health<\/a>. Glassenberg now serves as the executive vice president of Relevate Health Games.\n <\/p>\n![\"Screenshots](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/level-one-triphotos-of-game.jpg\")
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