Pharmacy loving Pills2Pixels is back with an AMR-themed game.  

This time it’s using retro video game Space Invaders to bring some colour to the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) debate. 

Play the game here!

Ambient, electro, and rock music blare out on each of the game’s three levels as pills fire out at bacteria. 

Game developer Pani Sphikas says Antibiotics Space Invaders “highlights AMR in a way that people don't really realise that they're learning and take some big lessons from playing it”. 

It follows in a series of other online games and content C+D reported on last month, including a Guess the Medicine Game, PharmacyTic Tac Toe, and a Drug Discovery Game. 

Read more: Pills2Pixels: Pharmacy games by a pharmacy professional 

Having started the Pills2Pixels project a year ago and working two hours most nights to develop the games, Sphikas has developed seven so far for the pharmacy community. By day he works as a pharmacy operations manager in the NHS, something he’s done for fifteen years. 

Sphikas says he’s “always been a creative person” but thought “why not take some of my skillsets in digital education to create something”, adding his “biggest motivator” in life is improving people’s lives whether “that's staff, patients, family, friends”. 

“AMR is a huge thing” 

He believes Antibiotics Space Invaders “has a bit more reach outside pharmacy” such as being played in a GP surgery before your appointment, but it also has a personal element for him too.  

It’s a reminder of when his wife was treated for sepsis a couple of years ago, as the infection “is a huge killer and without the right antibiotics, it can really spread”, he says. 

Read more: Pharmacy Rush: can you dispense on time in this video game? 

He takes two months from idea to delivery for each game , with “the idea the easy part” before coding the front-end technology so the game can be used on a web browser. He then checks the game’s accessibility for disabled and mobile users which takes the longest amount of time. 

But Sphikas stresses the importance of keeping his games free and on open source for everyone to access, and even though he’s only shared them on X (formerly known as Twitter) so far, his games have been played over 20,000 times across 61 countries. 

Read more: Mystery pharmacist publishes a widely praised romantic novel 

“What I'm hoping to do is increase the number of games and create social projects where people come together. I'm on the NHS digital entrepreneur programme and they’re helping giving me some of the tools to try and grow this a bit more,” he says. 

After revealing his favourite video games were The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. 3 on Nintendo NES, and Street Fighter II, it’s another classic game which he is looking to develop next. 

“A Pac-Man game where you eat a medicine and then it comes up with a question for you to answer,” Sphikas says. Would you play that game?