I am sure that many of you have wished you had an primer for cellular and molecular biology. You could hand this primer to your friends and say, just check this out! Then your friends could understand better what your biohacking is all about. I made a video game that serves as this primer (Immune Defense). Then I made a site for all kinds of science games: ScienceGameCenter.org
Stories and games can make complex concepts common knowledge. If you doubt that games can teach such complex things, go read the Wikipedia page for The Legend of Zelda Ocharina of Time. After trying to stagger through all that data, ask 3 random people how to outsmart a Deku shrub and one of them will know right away. You know how to kill a zombie, you understand the difference between a shotgun and a rifle in a game… You could learn the difference between a positron and a helium atom, how to do Punnet squares. You can even play games that create data, like Fold It, Eye Wire, Phyllo… There is even a game call Hero Coli, that uses biobricks to give a heroic e coli new traits.
I will discuss what makes a game a well designed game, why that also proteins to science games and how a few games in particular do an excellent job at teaching abstract, complex fundamental concepts.
I left my post doc in biochemistry and microbiology to manage the Immune Attack project at the Federation of American Scientists. The game Immune Attack introduces receptors, clouds of cytokines, cytokinesis, and receptor mediated phagocytosis. The game pulls players into the world of cell to cell signaling and molecular immunology. The game was intended to teach basic cellular immunology to college students. However, I felt that Immune Attack could teach molecular cell biology and teach it to younger students. I created a multiple choice test of molecular and cellular immunology based on the game. I also showed players complex molecular biology images from Nature Immunology Reviews and asked them, “Do you think you could understand this?” Immune Attack students clearly learned molecular immunology and clearly gained confidence in their ability to understand related diagrams (Stegman, 2014). Based on this research, I designed a sequel game, Immune Defense. I am the chair of the DC chapter of the International Game Developer Association (IGDA). I attend regional and national game developer conferences and my game Immune Defense has been accepted in many competitive commercial game expos. I play a lot of video games. A wide range of audiences are interested in my work: I spoke at national meetings for the Association of Medical Illustrators, the National Science Teachers Association, the Serious Play Conference, Games Society and Learning, and the American Society for Cell Biology. My intense time as a “post doc” in serious game design and development has taught me many important skills: 1. How to tease out the core elements of concepts and create an engaging game mechanism. 2. How to present ideas to and collaborate with programmers, artists and other game development professionals. 3. How to playtest and iterate the game so that it is fun and intuitive for players. I have an in depth understanding of the principles of biochemistry and cell biology, the creative vision to produce interactive Technology that presents these principles and experience testing iterative game designs for effectiveness.