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Immune System Defense
- 1. Immune System Defense Patrick Clements Jeremy Pesner
- 2. Introduction • Dr. Zheng drew parallels between OO programming and biological systems in a published paper • Also wanted an educational game to have interested students play. Should be fun, but also educational and factually accurate • We were called upon to merge all these ideas together
- 3. Educational Games • Have been in existence about as long as computer games • Educators tried to capitalize on the “magic of Pac Man” • In 1981, Thomas Malone set out five main characteristics that he believed educational games should possess
- 4. Malone’s Five Points • Clear goals that students find meaningful • Multiple goal structures and scoring to give students feedback on their progress • Multiple difficulty levels to adjust the game difficulty to learner skill • Random elements of surprise • An emotionally appealing fantasy and metaphor that is related to game skills
- 7. Our Game and Competition Immune Attack Immune System Defense • Developed by the Federation of American Scientists, Brown University, and University of Southern California • Modern looking graphics • Fairly complex controls to non-gamers • Little replay value, no difficulty setting • Player is educated through a fictional scenario • Developed by two college students with XNA Game Studio Express • Simple graphics • Very simple controls, anyone can pick them up easily • High replay value (through randomized levels), several difficulty settings • Player walks through the realistic biological process
- 9. Software Process • Early Ideas: – Real-Time Strategy Game (Turn-based combat) – Shooter game (Shoot pathogens down) – Tower Defense Game
- 10. Software Process • How a Tower Defense game operates • Relation to our game – “Towers” = immune system cells – “Attackers” = pathogens – “Citizens” = generic body cells – Extra controls for user
- 11. Software Process- Gameplay • Points – Used to “buy” more cells after a stage – Cumulative – Earn points based on the number of “citizen” cells remaining after each stage • Scoring – Number of cells remaining each round – Total number of pathogens destroyed
- 12. Software Process • Implementation – Cells derived from Base class with multiple interfaces – Updating and Hit Testing – “Vicinity” targeting
- 13. Future Works • Randomly Generated Levels – A vein network created from branching nodes • Various Types of Pathogens – More biologically accurate and entertaining • Different Degrees of Difficulty – Allow the game to suit more users • Framework? – Scripting for use with several different body systems
- 14. Conclusion • Without formal testing available, evaluate with regards to Malone’s elements of good educational games
- 15. 1. Clear, meaningful goals • Defend cells from infection • Compete for high scores with other players
- 16. 2. Multiple Goal Structures w/ immediate feedback • Point feedback at the end of each level that depends on the performance in each stage
- 17. 3. Multiple Difficulty Levels • Clear lack of adjustability • Rigid gameplay (all users play the same exact game)
- 18. 4. Random Elements of Surprise • Movement and placement along with targeting allow the game to be different every time through • Though random, this does not provide a surprise and thus lacks some ability to keep users coming back
- 19. 5. Emotionally appealing fantasy related to game skills • Game based strongly in reality • Emotional appeal rests in the students dislike of being sick and desire to be healthy again as quickly as possible
- 20. Conclusion • Game loosely adheres to Malone’s elements • Some games are successful without many of the concepts (Simulation games for example) • Real value comes from actual testing – How entertaining is it? – Does the entertainment lend itself to the learning process?
Editor's Notes
- 1st bullet examples: Multifunctionality is represented by polymorphism on OO, and enzymes catalyzing different substrates in biological systems. Hierarchical relations are shown through inheritance in OO, and whether an enzyme is a given type of protein
- Generally platform-oriented, with mathematical or lexical knowledge being required to advance through the stages. Touch typing began to grow popular at this point.
- There is a much larger diversity here. The touch typing game is significantly more mature. Immune Attack (bottom center) is the educational biology game we compared ourselves to. Civilization IV educates incidentally: it wasn’t marketed as an educational game but is recognized as having educational value