Immune System Defense

Patrick Clements, University of South Carolina

Jeremy Pesner, Dickinson College

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

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

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

Previous Educational Games

Educational Games Today

Our Game and CompetitionImmune 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

• Medium replay value (through randomized enemy actions), no difficulty setting

• Player walks through the realistic biological process

The Immune System

Software Process• Early Ideas:

– Real-Time Strategy Game (Turn-based combat)

– Shooter game (Shoot pathogens down)– Multi-faceted game with different mini stages– Tower Defense Game

Software Process• How a Tower Defense game operates

• Our game– “Towers” = immune system cells– “Attackers” = pathogens– “Citizens” = generic body cells– Extra controls for user

Software Process- Gameplay• Points

– Used to “buy” more cells after a stage– Cumulative– Earned based on the number of “citizen” cells

remaining after each stage

• Score Calculation– Number of cells remaining each round– Total number of pathogens destroyed

Software Process• Implementation

– Cells derived from base class with multiple interfaces such as Bindable, Dividable

– Update and Hit Test for each object type– “Vicinity” targeting by immune system cells

Future Works• Randomly Generated Levels

– A vein network created from branching nodes

• Various Types of Pathogens– More biologically accurate and entertaining– memory based immunities

• Different Degrees of Difficulty– Suit wider range of user abilities

• Framework?– Scripting for use with several different biological

systems

Conclusion• Without formal testing available, evaluate with

regards to Malone’s elements of good educational games

• The Steps:

1. Clear, Meaningful goals

2. Multiple Goal Structures, immediate feedback

3. Multiple Difficulty levels

4. Random Elements of Surprise

5. Emotionally Appealing fantasy

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?