Public Health Data Prototype

Long Live the Beat

A side-scrolling data game that turns CDC National Center for Health Statistics life expectancy and death-rate records into a playable century-long timeline.

By Eric Rhea GameLab prototype Status: Playable static app

The app uses public historical mortality data from NCHS. It is an educational visualization prototype, not medical guidance or a forecast of individual outcomes.

Long Live the Beat playable timeline with life-expectancy notes, death-rate signals, and stage art

High-Level Overview

Long Live the Beat is a static GameLab prototype about making mortality trend data legible without burying the visitor in a table. The app follows U.S. life expectancy from 1900 through 2018, pairing the rising life-expectancy line with a normalized death-rate signal.

The game frame is a rock-and-roll side-scrolling timeline. The player moves through eras, collects life-year notes, avoids static bursts, and watches the NCHS data move from a 47.3-year headline in 1900 to 78.7 years in 2018.

What the Prototype Lets You Do

  • Open a static browser app backed by nchs_death_rates_life_expectancy.csv.
  • Play a side-scrolling timeline with keyboard and on-screen controls.
  • Compare life expectancy and age-adjusted death rate by race and sex filters.
  • Move through intro, tutorial, cutscene, play, settings, and credits states without a backend.
  • Inspect the local CDC source note before treating any chart or game state as evidence.

Source Backbone

The local source note captures the CSV used to generate the runtime JavaScript data module. The app ships both the original CSV and src/data/nchsLifeExpectancyData.js, which was generated from that file for fast static loading.

Local file nchs_death_rates_life_expectancy.csv, retrieved 2026-07-01, 34,059 bytes, with 1,071 data rows and 5 columns.
Publisher Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using National Center for Health Statistics mortality trend data.
Integrity SHA-256: c2473acf4bcc22c876ebd67abf131e89ea46c3ed35f1cdf23025301ac39b3bdf.

Build Detail

The playable app ships as static HTML, CSS, JavaScript ES modules, local Three.js r185, generated stage art, a sprite atlas, the original CDC CSV, and a generated NCHS data module. The data layer exposes year, race, sex, average life expectancy, and age-adjusted death rate fields to the chart and game model.

The main screen keeps the evidence close to the interaction: race and sex filters update the chart, milestone list, current year, score lane, and side-scrolling canvas together.

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