In my last post, I discussed how games are being used to communicate, not just to entertain. Today, I want to discuss The Great Flu, a game recently released by Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The game attempts to educate the public about the dangers of and difficulty in containing flu pandemics.
In the game, the player acts as the head of the World Pandemic Control during the outbreak of an unknown flu. As the game progresses, the player must take actions, such as dispatching research teams, dispensing medication and face masks, and closing schools and airports, in an attempt to control and ultimately defeat the virus. As the pandemic intensifies, the player is given information about the history and science of epidemics through a series of newspaper articles and videos. Eventually, if the player is successful, the game ends with a count of the number of people infected and killed over the pandemic’s life span, and the money spent containing the virus.
I think the game succeeds in presenting players with a lot of information through the multimedia featured in the game, and by including hints in it, giving players incentive to absorb it. Furthermore, it nicely illustrates the dangers of our highly connected world: there’s nothing more jarring than fighting a virus raging in Central and North America only to glance at Europe and find the epidemic exploding half way across the globe. However, the game does suffer from a few common pitfalls, and going over them might shed some light on some of the challenges with using games for education.
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