14 replies to this topic

[Archaeaologist]

Since my team for my current project is currently MIA, I'm toying around with the idea of taking a short hiatus to work on a smaller project that utilizes my expertise in the field of Microbiology. The working title is Medical Microbiologist, and the concept is simple: You're a Medical Microbiologist who is tasked with identifying a disease based on the organism that's causing it. In order to do this, you must identify the organism in question. This is done through a series of tests: staining and microscopy, metabolic tests, possibly even colony characteristics. Since this is based on real life tests and organisms, there will be in game references and documentation to help in the identification process, but the game will no doubt be simpler (and faster) than how it's done in real life.

Anyhow, the game can be as simple or complicated as I desire, so there's a lot of flexibility for it. For instance, I could make the staining process a mini-game (you have to follow a specific procedure in real life, you could follow a similar procedure in the game). I could force the player to work under a budget or time constraint (you can perform x number of tests per day, you have x amount of money with which to spend on tests, you have 5 days to diagnose this disease, etc.). I could add or subtract more tests and procedures as the game goes on. I could add in a storyline or special events as the game goes on. The only aspect I know I want to include is the identification process, which can be as simple as looking at the bacteria under a microscope and determining what they are through shape and color or as complicated as having multiple staining procedures and multiple metabolic tests that one must sift through in order to determine the exact organism.

So, I have two questions, then. One, is this a fun and/or interesting concept that you think people would be interested in playing? Two, just how complicated should I aim to make this? I want this game to be fun and challenging, but I also want to be able to complete the project in a reasonable amount of time. What do you think a good balance would be?

Cheers.

[vidokas]

its should be nice.
something like flash game "lab of the dead" with mini games.
i would like to play that

p.s. and this can be like learning material for ppl new to microbiology

Edited by vidokas, 25 April 2012 - 09:43 PM.

[Archaeaologist]

its should be nice.
something like flash game "lab of the dead" with mini games.
i would like to play that

p.s. and this can be like learning material for ppl new to microbiology

Yeah, I'm thinking of doing it as a learning material foremost and making the game aspect of it secondary. Still, I'd like it to be fun as well as realistic, so maybe I should be asking for ideas that would make such a game fun. So, then, what would make such a game fun? I already know what would make it realistic.

[chance]

One, is this a fun and/or interesting concept that you think people would be interested in playing? Two, just how complicated should I aim to make this?

It might be fun. But if it's too realistic, it might only appeal to knowledgeable people in your field.

I guess you need to decide whether to make a "teaching aid" for biomedical forensics, or a game that appeals to everyone. Doing both will be challenging.

Just for fun, have you considered: http://en.wikipedia....tional_diseases ?

[Archaeaologist]

One, is this a fun and/or interesting concept that you think people would be interested in playing? Two, just how complicated should I aim to make this?

It might be fun. But if it's too realistic, it might only appeal to knowledgeable people in your field.

I guess you need to decide whether to make a "teaching aid" for biomedical forensics, or a game that appeals to everyone. Doing both will be challenging.

Just for fun, have you considered: http://en.wikipedia....tional_diseases ?

Actually, that's not a bad idea. I could do things like Vampiris and Cooties and Bone-itis. As for doing both, well, I see it as a viable teaching aid but only up to a certain degree. I can see some gameplay aspects to it already, but it's really a question of figuring out what audience it would appeal to and then trying to market it towards that group. Like I said, I'm open to any and all ideas on how to make this game fun.

[IceMetalPunk]

One, is this a fun and/or interesting concept that you think people would be interested in playing? Two, just how complicated should I aim to make this?

It might be fun. But if it's too realistic, it might only appeal to knowledgeable people in your field.

I guess you need to decide whether to make a "teaching aid" for biomedical forensics, or a game that appeals to everyone. Doing both will be challenging.

Just for fun, have you considered: http://en.wikipedia....tional_diseases ?

Actually, that's not a bad idea. I could do things like Vampiris and Cooties and Bone-itis. As for doing both, well, I see it as a viable teaching aid but only up to a certain degree. I can see some gameplay aspects to it already, but it's really a question of figuring out what audience it would appeal to and then trying to market it towards that group. Like I said, I'm open to any and all ideas on how to make this game fun.

Finally, I'll get to find out if the Cooties are gram-negative or not!

As someone who spent a year taking biomedical engineering courses before switching to computer science, and who still has a great interest in medicine, I think this is a really cool idea. But if it's too realistic, then it becomes less of a game and more like work. Using bacteria/viruses like Canis lycanthropis (werewolf), Sanguinus vampiris (vampires), Calcus infectus (Bone-itus), etc. can be a good way to make it enjoyable, but at the end of the day, the player needs to be invested in the goal of the game. They need to want to do the tests and want to interpret the results.

I think each patient that comes in should have a backstory, as well as a certain incubation period after which the disease becomes incurable. This way, they invest emotionally with the person, giving them a reason to try and identify the pathogen, as well as a time limit in which to do so.

Some kind of PCR analysis would be cool (to me, at least)...maybe you could allow gene sequencing along with libraries of genomic data for the fake organisms? Of course, make the genomes extremely tiny (like 20 to 40 base pairs) for simplicity. Then the player could choose from a list of restriction enzymes to pick the one best suited to identifying the pathogen by its DNA.

Oh, and include prions. If only because their replication mechanism in the absence of genetic material is pretty cool .

-IMP

Edited by IceMetalPunk, 26 April 2012 - 04:56 AM.

[Yal]

This makes me think about the old DS series "Trauma Center: Under The Knife" where you played as a surgeon. I think the best gameplay aspect of all sorts of medical ludification should be the time constraints: if you work too slowly (or make too much mistakes) the patient will die. Bundling that with emotionally believeable characters so that you really care for them, it should have a good impact on the player.

Suggestion: if a patient dies, don't MISSION FAILED! the player, instead, instantly save the game and just keep the game going. When you lose a patient the other doctors (who should be really likeable characters) will comfort you and say things like "you did the best you could" and all that... unless you did fare really badly in the stage.

Basically, I'm thinking multiple endings ranging from you saving every patient to you losing so many you get fired. You should have a "reputation value" that's a average value of your mission rankings so far, but with the impact of old ones lessened (multiply them with a factor 0.8, for instance, so that next time it gets 0.8*0.8 = 0.64 times the original ranking, and the third time it gets 0.8*0.64 = 0.51 and so on), and depending on how good your reputation is, you get more or less harsh or friendly responses from your colleagues. Oh, and as said before, if a patient dies the game should instantly save to prevent the player from reloading and try again, forcing the player to play trough multiple times to get all the endings.

[chance]

Finally, I'll get to find out if the Cooties are gram-negative or not!

You can't classify cooties by Gram staining. Cooties are small insects, like lice. What kind of pathologist are you! sheesh...

I think each patient that comes in should have a backstory, as well as a certain incubation period after which the disease becomes incurable. This way, they invest emotionally with the person, giving them a reason to try and identify the pathogen, as well as a time limit in which to do so.

This is a good basis for the game/challenge. But the PCR / gene sequencing may be a bit much. Instead, maybe have some old-fashioned treatments/diagnostics like bloodletting, lobotomy/trepanning, phrenology, ear candling, chiromancy, entrail reading, etc.

.

Edited by chance, 26 April 2012 - 11:34 AM.

[Archaeaologist]

These are all great ideas. I agree that the whole PCR thing might be a bit much, though if I wanted to include viruses in the list, then it'd be absolutely essential. The problem with PCR is sequencing wouldn't really be viable unless the hospital happened to have a next-gen sequencer on hand that wasn't already inundated with tons of other projects. That means you'd have to essentially be looking for markers, and I'm not sure I'd really want to subject people to that kind of eye-bleed. Yes, it'd be realistic to add, but it might also be going too far. Perhaps there could be the occasional "sequencing cheat" that a player could have if he or she didn't want to/couldn't identify the bacterium. I could see that as an option.

As for actually treating the patient, I'd have to really think about it. I agree that there needs to be a story and an possibility of losing patients. I'd like to keep the diseases random for the most part, but I could also see scripting the bizarre diseases (or not introducing them as a possibility until later). I'd also like to see the possibility of screwing up tests and not following asceptic technique leading to the possibility of the player getting sick. Hmm, I guess, though, I won't really be able to do too much planning until I have a core engine. Still, keep the ideas coming; they're great.

[IceMetalPunk]

These are all great ideas. I agree that the whole PCR thing might be a bit much, though if I wanted to include viruses in the list, then it'd be absolutely essential. The problem with PCR is sequencing wouldn't really be viable unless the hospital happened to have a next-gen sequencer on hand that wasn't already inundated with tons of other projects.

And? This is a game; why can't the hospital have a thousand sequencers on hand if it needs them?

Finally, I'll get to find out if the Cooties are gram-negative or not!

You can't classify cooties by Gram staining. Cooties are small insects, like lice. What kind of pathologist are you! :tongue: sheesh...

I always thought Cooties was a bacterium that the lice feed on? Man, I should have paid more attention in first-grade pathology class

-IMP

[Archaeaologist]

These are all great ideas. I agree that the whole PCR thing might be a bit much, though if I wanted to include viruses in the list, then it'd be absolutely essential. The problem with PCR is sequencing wouldn't really be viable unless the hospital happened to have a next-gen sequencer on hand that wasn't already inundated with tons of other projects.

And? This is a game; why can't the hospital have a thousand sequencers on hand if it needs them?

If the game had infinite sequencers on hand, then the Microbiologist could just have all the microbes sequenced. That's a surefire way to identify any microbe, and it wouldn't surprise me if, in the future, this was the ideal method for identifying microbes. Of course, then I wouldn't have much of a game, now, would I. It'd be purely streak for isolation, culture, extract genomic DNA, sequence, BLAST. The only interesting possibility would be the detection of a brand new microbe, but that'd require a whole different type of game to identify (Research Microbiologist).

[IceMetalPunk]

These are all great ideas. I agree that the whole PCR thing might be a bit much, though if I wanted to include viruses in the list, then it'd be absolutely essential. The problem with PCR is sequencing wouldn't really be viable unless the hospital happened to have a next-gen sequencer on hand that wasn't already inundated with tons of other projects.

And? This is a game; why can't the hospital have a thousand sequencers on hand if it needs them?

If the game had infinite sequencers on hand, then the Microbiologist could just have all the microbes sequenced. That's a surefire way to identify any microbe, and it wouldn't surprise me if, in the future, this was the ideal method for identifying microbes. Of course, then I wouldn't have much of a game, now, would I. It'd be purely streak for isolation, culture, extract genomic DNA, sequence, BLAST. The only interesting possibility would be the detection of a brand new microbe, but that'd require a whole different type of game to identify (Research Microbiologist).

Ooooorrrrrrrrr....you could simply limit the amount of reference material the player has. So, for example, while you can't look at a book and find the entire genome of E. coli, you could instead find the sequencing of the genes for individual proteins, and then use the PCR results to compare the sequences in your mystery pathogen to those in the book. This wouldn't tell you what the organism is immediately, but it would tell you some of the proteins the organism makes. That would give you clues to what it might be. And by limiting what kinds of genes you actually have as reference material, you could have some that overlap among many different species, and only by figuring out the unique combination of proteins it makes can you determine what it is.

For example, let's say our fictional S. vampiris virus has a gene for some hemoglobin-absorption protein. Our PCR can detect that. But wait! Turns out, our C. lycanthropis virus also makes the same protein! And darn it, so does our Magi necromancis virus (which obviously turns humans into bloodthirsty necromancers ). We need to do more testing to figure out what this is. But this information still helped, because we've narrowed the pool of possible pathogens down to only those that absorb hemoglobin.

See? By simply restricting the amount of reference material, you can still allow sequencing to help point you in the right direction without simply giving you the answers .

Sure, you could test for each protein individually, but that would take a lot more time than sequencing the DNA, which tells you every protein the organism makes (as long as you have a reference sequence to compare it to). And maybe sometimes a mutant is producing a variant of a protein that you don't have a reference for, but it's similar enough to another that you can guess what its properties most likely are. Evolution in action, creating drug-resistant...vampires and werewolves, I guess .

-IMP

[Archaeaologist]

Ooooorrrrrrrrr....you could simply limit the amount of reference material the player has. So, for example, while you can't look at a book and find the entire genome of E. coli, you could instead find the sequencing of the genes for individual proteins, and then use the PCR results to compare the sequences in your mystery pathogen to those in the book. This wouldn't tell you what the organism is immediately, but it would tell you some of the proteins the organism makes. That would give you clues to what it might be. And by limiting what kinds of genes you actually have as reference material, you could have some that overlap among many different species, and only by figuring out the unique combination of proteins it makes can you determine what it is.

For example, let's say our fictional S. vampiris virus has a gene for some hemoglobin-absorption protein. Our PCR can detect that. But wait! Turns out, our C. lycanthropis virus also makes the same protein! And darn it, so does our Magi necromancis virus (which obviously turns humans into bloodthirsty necromancers ). We need to do more testing to figure out what this is. But this information still helped, because we've narrowed the pool of possible pathogens down to only those that absorb hemoglobin.

See? By simply restricting the amount of reference material, you can still allow sequencing to help point you in the right direction without simply giving you the answers .

Sure, you could test for each protein individually, but that would take a lot more time than sequencing the DNA, which tells you every protein the organism makes (as long as you have a reference sequence to compare it to). And maybe sometimes a mutant is producing a variant of a protein that you don't have a reference for, but it's similar enough to another that you can guess what its properties most likely are. Evolution in action, creating drug-resistant...vampires and werewolves, I guess .

-IMP

Fair enough, though maybe I'll use it in a sequel entitled Medical Microbiologist - Fictional Diseases. Heh. Though it occurs to me that if I stick to fictional diseases for this game then I wouldn't have to search through diagnostic books to find the actual results of the tests. Would make things a lot easier. Hmm....

[IceMetalPunk]

Ooooorrrrrrrrr....you could simply limit the amount of reference material the player has. So, for example, while you can't look at a book and find the entire genome of E. coli, you could instead find the sequencing of the genes for individual proteins, and then use the PCR results to compare the sequences in your mystery pathogen to those in the book. This wouldn't tell you what the organism is immediately, but it would tell you some of the proteins the organism makes. That would give you clues to what it might be. And by limiting what kinds of genes you actually have as reference material, you could have some that overlap among many different species, and only by figuring out the unique combination of proteins it makes can you determine what it is.

For example, let's say our fictional S. vampiris virus has a gene for some hemoglobin-absorption protein. Our PCR can detect that. But wait! Turns out, our C. lycanthropis virus also makes the same protein! And darn it, so does our Magi necromancis virus (which obviously turns humans into bloodthirsty necromancers ). We need to do more testing to figure out what this is. But this information still helped, because we've narrowed the pool of possible pathogens down to only those that absorb hemoglobin.

See? By simply restricting the amount of reference material, you can still allow sequencing to help point you in the right direction without simply giving you the answers .

Sure, you could test for each protein individually, but that would take a lot more time than sequencing the DNA, which tells you every protein the organism makes (as long as you have a reference sequence to compare it to). And maybe sometimes a mutant is producing a variant of a protein that you don't have a reference for, but it's similar enough to another that you can guess what its properties most likely are. Evolution in action, creating drug-resistant...vampires and werewolves, I guess .

-IMP

Fair enough, though maybe I'll use it in a sequel entitled Medical Microbiologist - Fictional Diseases. Heh. Though it occurs to me that if I stick to fictional diseases for this game then I wouldn't have to search through diagnostic books to find the actual results of the tests. Would make things a lot easier. Hmm....

I can't think of any reason you'd want to force yourself to use all real information. If the point of the game is to teach people about the processes involved in microbiology, and how those relate to the physical aspects of the pathogens, you can do that perfectly well using fictional diseases that still conform to predictable test results. And then, as you said, you wouldn't have to look up all the real results for real pathogens.

If you want the player to learn about the real organisms, you can always link them to reference material outside your game. Something like, "If you found Medical Microbiologist interesting, intriguing, or just plain enjoyable, find out how it applies to the real world by checking out these real-world examples of the techniques you've learned! Thanks for playing!"

-IMP

[Archaeaologist]

I can't think of any reason you'd want to force yourself to use all real information. If the point of the game is to teach people about the processes involved in microbiology, and how those relate to the physical aspects of the pathogens, you can do that perfectly well using fictional diseases that still conform to predictable test results. And then, as you said, you wouldn't have to look up all the real results for real pathogens.

If you want the player to learn about the real organisms, you can always link them to reference material outside your game. Something like, "If you found Medical Microbiologist interesting, intriguing, or just plain enjoyable, find out how it applies to the real world by checking out these real-world examples of the techniques you've learned! Thanks for playing!"

-IMP

Agreed. In fact, I think I'll start a topic right now about possible fictional diseases to include in the game.