The document discusses the development of an educational game focused on the immune system, drawing parallels between programming and biological systems. It outlines characteristics of effective educational games, reviews existing games, and presents the game's design and gameplay mechanics. The conclusion notes that while the game aligns loosely with established educational principles, further testing is necessary to evaluate its entertainment value and educational effectiveness.

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

5. Previous Educational Games

6. Educational Games Today

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

8. The Immune System

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?