|
|
-
Biological video game
Multi-disciplinary effort produces video game for the life sciences.
- The year is 2018.
An organism has killed almost all of the planet's plant life, leaving just one plant - a soybean plant - to survive.
And it's up to Dr. Clara Phyllton, a scientist with a PhD in plant biology from Iowa State University and her crew, to save the plant and thus the human race. But she and her crew get stuck inside the cell, so now it's up to a lowly dishwasher in Dr. Phyllton's lab, to get them out and save the world.
That's the premise of a new educational 3D video game being created by a research team headed by Eve Syrkin Wurtele, professor of genetics, development and cell biology. The team also includes ISU computer engineer Julie Dickerson, artist and game designer Steve Herrnstadt, cell biologist Diane Bassham, and graduate students and undergraduate students from a variety of academic disciplines.
"Meta!Blast" is designed to give high school and college students an interactive approach to understand the inner workings of a plant cell.
Students will play "Meta!Blast" much like they would "Tomb Raider" or any other computer game. The student will "drive" a sub, meet Dr. Phyllton, who is trapped inside the chloroplast of a plant cell, and try to save the last remaining plant on the planet while going through a series of missions that correlate with the introductory biology text.
In this interactive game, students explore the structure and metabolism of a cell. Characters in the cell guide players to repair the cell.
Think of the old Raquel Welch movie "Fantastic Voyage" only in a plant cell instead of a human body. But think video game.
"The game is designed to help students understand cell biology and its diverse biochemical processes," Wurtele says. "Video game players absorb the structure of entire imaginary worlds. The idea is that in playing the game, students will engage in and retain the intricacies and interdependencies of the cellular world."
The game will illustrate complex concepts such as the conversion of chemical, light and heat energy; metabolic flux; and the use and synthesis of chemical constituents in living organisms.
Wurtele's team has spent the last three years developing "Meta!Blast" with funding from the National Science Foundation and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The first level is scheduled to be rolled out by the end of the semester and will be tested and distributed as DVDs to universities and high schools. It will also be utilized with introductory college biological courses at Iowa State.
The 3D video game can also be played in planetariums, on multiple projection wall systems and even fully immersive environments such as Iowa State's C6 virtual reality system.
Wurtele says her interdisciplinary team has been able to challenge to combine science, with original art, music and writing to create "Meta!Blast." The team includes students from music, computer science, biology, human computer interaction, theatre, and art and design.
One of those students, Trevor Brown, who graduated in December with a degree in biological / premedical illustration, serves as the art director and digital artist on "Meta!Blast."
"It's an exciting concept," Brown says. "When you're playing ‘Meta!Blast' it's not like you're playing a biology textbook but instead playing a real video game.
"But I think we have effectively combined both education and entertainment in a way very few others have tried to tackle."
Trevor Brown
Around LAS
February 11-24, 2008
|
|
