Xoteric is a radical approach to drug education for teenagers. It has the characteristics of a computer game combined with the depth of an educational resource.

Xoteric has taken educari about two years to develop, employing the combined talents of artist and designer, Nick Stone and Richard Ives, an educationalist, Drug Education expert and managing partner of educari, with additional game design and programming by Séamus Brady, Lingo programming by Olly Manton and soundtrack by Tim Stone.

Xoteric has been field tested by players of various ages and abilities and on a range of computer platforms for maximum reliability.

Now it can contribute to your drug education programme. It is suitable for use in a variety of educational situations:

• school classroom
• informal educational settings
• home learning with parents or carers
• counselling agencies working with young drug users.

It is an excellent resource to have available when doing displays or exhibitions. The core target audience is 10 to 14-year-olds, but it will also be attractive to older teenagers, particularly those who are themselves drug users

educari's decision to produce a sophisticated, interactive resource was taken quite a while ago; educari's head of MultiMedia explains:

"There is already a lot of drug information available, but many teenagers are ignoring it.
When we looked closely, we found that the problem often lies with the delivery of the information rather than with the information itself.

Fortunately, because the expertise of our organisation lays both in drug education and multimedia development, we were able to produce a neccessary educational resource that really is very enjoyable to use."

From the vantage point of a high Earth orbit, a spaceship of aliens is exploring our planet. The game-player is a junior member of the crew.

The aliens are interested in all aspects of humanity and human behaviour.

The game-player's job is to find out about one aspect of human behaviour - drug taking. A good place to start is in a club.

A micro-probe is launched into the club and the game player (remaining safely on the ship) can control where it goes. The probe shows those clubbers who are under the influence of drugs. The player can target these humans and find out more about their drug use. S/he does this through using the three scanning modes available:

Body Scan, which provides information about the physical condition of the drug user.

Mind Scan, which not only indicates the current mental state, but often also explores the reasons behind the drug use, and sometimes projects forward into the future and speculates about what might happen.

Drug Scan, which identifies the nature of the drug that has been consumed, and gives information about it.

for further details of this exciting resource, please visit www.Xoteric.com