Lockdown inspires Italian boy to create coronavirus video game

Fourth grade pupil 9-year-old boy Lupo Daturi displays 'Cerba-20', an online video game to virtually combat COVID-19 that he built from scratch during lockdown, on April 24, 2020 in his room at home in Binasco, south of Milan, during the country's lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infection, caused by the novel coronavirus - AFP

MILAN, AFP: While most nine-year-olds have been battling during lockdown with the vagaries of home schooling, Lupo Daturi has been waging war on COVID-19 itself. Virtually.

The fourth-grade pupil from the outskirts of Milan, where inhabitants have been living in lockdown since 8 March, has used his time to create a video game to play with his friends.

“I had to stop all the sports I did because of COVID-19,” he says. “I can’t even go to the pond with my dog. Instead of playing sports – skiing, swimming and karate – I have to make do with an exercise bike.” That led Lupo to turn his attention to programming, a passion that he shares with his father Marco, a business manager. He took some online tutorials and set to work on building his game – Cerba-20.

The aim of the game is a fairly typical ‘seek and destroy’ with lasers, except in this case, the player is in the captain’s chair of the Cerba-20 spacecraft and the enemy is, that’s right, COVID-19. Lupo explains that he plays with his friends and that he now intends to set up a project to teach them how to program.