A presentation that we gave as part of our Research Experience for Undergraduate program. We designed and built a basic game for teaching the basic characteristics of the biological immunization process (which neither of us were familiar with previously).

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?