Discussion (Group)

Group Discussion:

It is believed that educational games can optimize study process by bringing in experiences such as social interaction, environment simulation, virtual world problem solving, collaboration, as well as emotional involvement. In addition, the interactive storyline and the active communication with the game allow students to control their own study pace. Therefore, we seek to develop a novel 3D educational game which will fully adopt the standards and conventions of the current gaming industry.

For the purpose of developing this project, our short-term goal (around one year) is to experiment with the gaming production process by build up an interactive 3D lymph node city. Our long-term goal is to expand (1) the game world from a small lymph node to other parts of the body, (2) single character to multiple characters (3) simple immune responses to complex pathological processes. Eventually, an educational game that encompasses the current standards of the gaming industry will be developed to deliver a rich spectrum of biological information of the human body in an accurate and fun way.

To achieve our goals, we will divide the task of constructing the lymph node city into three parts: interactive application development, 3D character development, and 3D environmental development. As we work to complete these short-term goals, we will be gaining valuable knowledge and skills to expand the extensiveness and intricacy of our project.

Furthermore, we hope that this project will start a new research area for Biomedical Communications Program. This project allows biomedical communication students to explore programming, script writing, storyboard sketching, 3D modeling, 3D animating, and texture technique from a game developer’s point of view. The 21st century has been called a “game era” by some researchers (Lenoard, 2003). Therefore, an educational game has the potential to become an effective didactic tool for its future users.